


You and I in Unison

by everythingintransit



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: (also in the past) - Freeform, (in the past), 100 Ways to Say I Love You Writing Challenge, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Non-Magical, Bipolar Disorder, Chubby Remus, Domestic Fluff, Eating Disorders, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, POV First Person, PoC Sirius, Recovery, Remus's POV, Slice of Life, Tattoo Artist Sirius Black, Teacher Remus Lupin, and life ensues, basically theyre 2 dumbasses in love, god there is so much fluff and it's so fucking domestic, takes place in america! yay america, their backgrounds basically have nothing to do with HP canon, will update tags as i continue to post, wolfstar
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-24
Updated: 2020-08-04
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:15:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 22,557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24888238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/everythingintransit/pseuds/everythingintransit
Summary: Neither of them had thought much about moving across the country until Sirius suggested it and Remus had agreed. Not because Remus didn’t like home or was itching for a change, but because he’d follow Sirius anywhere and Portland had just sounded right, the way you can gauge the vibe of a place without ever having been.Home is a four letter word, just like love or fuck (essential parts of Remus Lupin’s vocabulary) and Remus thinks that home is wherever Sirius ends up, so they pack their things and embark on their next great adventure: conquering the Pacific Northwest.You said “We should move somewhere deep in the middle of July”And I replied “Dream me up something better than me and you”(AKA - 100 ways to say I love you)
Relationships: Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Kudos: 18





	1. In Love Forever

**Author's Note:**

> hello! new fic time! i found this 100 ways to say i love you prompt and immediately wanted to write 100 chapters of wolfstar in love with each other just modern day w/ no relations to magic and in america, of course, because i write home better than anywhere else
> 
> this is all written first person from remus’s pov (which was a challenge for me at first but i grew to love it!) and all the “you”s are referencing the one and only sirius black. 
> 
> there is a basic plot because im just describing their lives, so each chapter is NOT a one shot. they’re all sort of tied together but the plotline is just everyday lovely life <3 try to enjoy!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Remus and Sirius take a road trip

_"Pull over. Let me drive for awhile.”_

It had been your idea to move. 

We had been sitting on the couch after going for a badly executed bike ride to Camden, and I had been red-faced and sweaty, taking up the whole couch while you stood over me drinking lukewarm water and had said- “I’m sick of it here, but not you, so I think we should move.” 

If only for a better bike scene and drivers that didn’t think pedestrians were targets, I had said yes. Asked where, and you had said “West Coast” all dreamy, as if you’d never been there before. 

I hadn’t, anyways. I’d only been as far west as Ohio, where I’d visited my grandparents in their ramshackle farm out by Amish country. They live in a dry county, so you have to drive half an hour to find any alcohol. It explains why my mom moved out as fast as she could, itching to get her hands on a bottle. 

You’d been on family vacations all over the world, much less the country, so I had suggested California because I’d seen your pictures of San Francisco but you had reminded me that I hate heat. How could I forget? It was late May in Philadelphia and I was drenched in sweat from a bike ride, partly because I was out of shape but partly because the East Coast was dripping with a foreign humidity that had always felt swamp-like and personal, like the air was clutching at my skin and all I wanted was for it to let _go._

You had said you’d been to Seattle because you had some distant great uncle who lived on an island in the middle of Puget Sound and it was so beautiful. And I had suggested Portland because it’s halfway to California and I’ll miss the sun too much if we’re all the way up in Seattle. 

It had been sunny on the day we left. I had stood on the street and looked at our dirty red Subaru with a U-Haul attached to the back, filled with all our garish furniture picked up at thrift stores and by the side of the road on suburban streets. You had always told me that you had the money to get us nice stuff, but my childhood home had been filled with mismatched furniture and sometimes I got around to missing it so bad that I had insisted on keeping our apartment looking trashy and gaudy as all hell. You loved it then, and you still love it now. 

Our building was red brick and falling apart but it had become so much of a home that you, stupid and sentimental, had wanted to take a picture of us outside. But Philadelphia natives aren’t kind or friendly at all so half the people walking by had just ignored you until some young indie looking women had walked by and obliged when you had asked them. You wrapped one hand around my waist and stretched the other one out in a wide gesture, a grin lighting up your whole face while I laughed at a joke you had told just before. 

You always tell jokes right before we take pictures together, just so I get a genuine smile on my face. 

Now, it’s late at night and pitch dark and I don’t even know what state we’re in. Minnesota? North Dakota? I’m tired and you’re playing pop punk to keep me awake. This band’s from Philly, I think. Or New Jersey. Man Overboard. You’ve been singing along diligently all night while I weave over the double yellow lines like I’m drunk.

“Remus.” You mumble quietly, reaching across and tilting the steering wheel back onto our side. “Stay awake, babe.” 

“Mmmh.” We’re heading for Fargo, I remind myself, and we’ll check into a motel and crash on a dingy mattress. But when? “How far are we?” 

“About forty minutes,” you respond, checking your phone. The neon glow lights your face and I nearly send us careening into a nearby field because you’re so beautiful in any light, all long dark hair, face rough and unshaven, eyes bright despite the darkness of the night. I know we should’ve left Minneapolis earlier but we got so held up at Mall of America that it was nighttime by the time we hit the road, and I get tired easily. 

Plus, whatever state we’re in is really fucking dark. 

“What state are we in?” You snort a laugh, not knowing if I’m serious.

“Minnesota, we’ve been here all day. Fargo’s right on the border, so we’ll be in North Dakota as soon as we’re in Fargo. One and the same.” You hesitate, phone screen off so now your face is drenched in a sudden darkness. “Pull over. Let me drive for a while.”

“You drove us from Wisconsin!”

“You’re so tired! Please, Moonybear.”

“Don’t call me that,” I huff, wiping at my stinging eyes while Zac Einstein whines loudly over the stereo. _Let’s go home to a place we can call our own, we can live there together, be in love forever, and never have to be alone._

I sigh and give in because I love you. The car bumps over grass and dirt as I pull to the side of the road and barely remember to put the car in park before stumbling out the door. You meet me in front of the car, headlights lighting us up like deer about to have their lives saved. You’re wearing a tacky tourist t-shirt that’s just a little too small for you and you look a little sleepy and a lot lovely, so I kiss you and you laugh a little against my lips. 

“We’re nearly there.” You tell me as I slide into the passenger seat, feeling very warm and safe as you pull back onto the road. I believe you.


	2. Reminded Me Of You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sirius steals a (fake) corgi because he loves his boyfriend

_"It reminded me of you."_

“It reminded me of you.” You tell me with a sigh of relief as you set the statue down in the small entryway. 

It’s of a corgi and is twice the size that life size corgis are, but it has a dopey smile on its metallic face and has eyes so well shaped that I sort of believed it could wag its stumpy tail and come to life with a loud bark if it felt so inclined.

“Aw.” I say while I reach out and touch the corgi’s face. 

“Where should we put it?” I ask, because we’re currently living in the basement of a condo and are paying over $1,200 a month in rent for a one bed, one bath place with no front yard (a concrete walkway out to the street instead) but you smile like the matter of a front yard is no problem. It was your idea to start renting this place because it’s right downtown and there’s a Taco Bell two blocks away, which was what got me convinced. You know how I love Taco Bell. 

“In the doorway.” You tell me. “Like, it’ll welcome us home.”

“Where’d you get it?” 

“It was outside someone’s house in Milwaukie.”

“You  _ stole  _ it?”

“No, like, on the curb.”

“Oh. Ha.” You give me a familiar grin that I see in my dreams sometimes, the good ones, and you leave the corgi by the doorway as you enter the apartment. It’s already garishly decorated but you’ve been drawing flash like crazy, and I’ve even hung up the ones you call shitty, so we’re beginning to have an entire wall covered in flash tattoo sheets. 

We’re already finding ways to scrape by: you’ve landed an apprenticeship at a tattoo parlor up north by Boise and have sent your articles to plenty of magazines, already having heard back from two of them with possible openings coming up. I found a badly paying gig teaching American history at a middle school and had taken their offer right away because it's money and it's teaching, and I love those things nearly as much as I love you, so we’re set for jobs, for the most part. 

I had gotten back from teaching orientation at three and then proceeded to do absolutely nothing all day long, because doing anything isn’t so much fun unless you’re there. I haven’t even made dinner, which makes me feel stupid now, because I can tell you’re favoring your shoulder the way you do when you’re sore.

“How was your day?” I ask as you move further into our home, earning a kiss and a tired smile. Your thick black hair is held back from your face by a tie dye bandana which makes you look extra-hippie (extra Portland) and you haven’t shaved in weeks now so I get a face full of scratch when you kiss me. 

“Good. Tough, a little. They got me doing this back piece, don’t ask me why. Of a motorcycle with flames and shit coming out behind it,” you gesture as you speak and I follow behind you as you sling your bag onto the bench by the door and crash down onto the big squashy lime green couch we had found at a flea market in Maryland. “And this chick wanted to do it all in one session, but that didn’t work.”

“You told her to come back?”

“Yeah! I worked at it for five hours straight and she fell asleep, told me to keep going when I woke her up. Moody got pissed.” “Mad-Eye” Moody, Sirius’s boss and the man teaching him the skills of tattooing, is a notorious hardass who I dream of giving a piece of my mind to, if I wasn’t a little bitch who runs from confrontation. 

“Well, it’s like a challenge, right? They want to see if you’re up to it?”

“And I am, of course.” You say lightly and your eyes sparkle, because you never back down from a challenge. “It’s a damn good tattoo. She’s coming back to finish tomorrow.”

“Good to hear.” I sit down on the couch next to you, a little insecure about how little I’ve achieved today.

“How was teacher school?”

“Stupid, dumb, whatever. I was the youngest guy there.” It had been sort of embarrassing, really. I had turned up in a button down while everyone else wore jeans and t-shirts, and I hadn’t known a single person while it seemed everyone else had found familiar faces. There had been one kind soul, Mary MacDonald, a biology teacher, who had taken a seat next to me and flashed a white teeth grin before starting up a conversation. She had made it marginally better, but I had felt sort of out of place the whole time. 

I became a teacher to avoid sitting in classrooms and being lectured, but I ended up another student at the mercy of flow charts about how to make your teaching more effective. I sigh dramatically just thinking about it and you pick up on the vibe, moving your body next to me and linking your tattooed fingers through my unmarked ones, leaning your head against my shoulder. 

“What’s up with dinner?” You ask and I shrug, jostling your head.

“Sorry,” I whisper, and you don’t reply because it doesn’t matter. 

“There're so many good looking food trucks, you think we should check some out?” After a long day, the only thing you want to do is get back out into the world. I love you for it. 

“Um.” I say, because Philly’s idea of food trucks are greasy little rigs with dead eyed dudes sitting in them, waiting to cook up a steaming batch of food poisoning that’ll leave you on the bathroom floor for days on end. You read my mind and laugh a little.

“They’re good here, I swear. Like, iconic good. Just another reason we moved!”

“You’re not telling me that we moved to Portland just because it has good food trucks.”

“Moony, I literally looked up ‘best American food truck cities’ and it was like: Austin, Nashville, Portland all tied for number one and I don’t like the south so I was like fuck it, let’s do Portland.” I laugh and you laugh and I believe you, of course I believe you, because who doesn't move across the country based on the food truck scene?

“I saw this Korean and Mexican fusion one yesterday,” you say as you stand up, moving in front of the mirror to check your hair. “It’s up by Northwest, what do you say?”

“Yeah let’s go.” I get up too, moving to stand behind you in the mirror, looking at us. The tie dye bandana has these swirls of blue that change your greyish eyes the same color, a darker blue that shows up in the night sky sometimes. You’re shorter than me, not by much, but enough that I can tease you about. I look at myself, try not to, look anyways.

Scars across my face that get plenty of stares and curious looks from people (from anyone). They’ve gotten lighter with time but I still remember how they looked fresh when I was sixteen- deep and red and scary. They’re a permanent reminder of teenage insanity and I hate them because I regret it all so much. It’s a life I’ve left behind- a life in Pennsylvania that I try not to think about because I’ve got you, and a decent new job, and the dark green Pacific Northwest for a whole new chapter in my life.

And, because I see it when we leave our home, I’ve got a corgi statue with a big smile on its carved face. That’s enough for me. 


	3. Battle Born

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sirius and Remus eat crazy flavored ice cream

_"No, no, it's my treat."_

Our basement dwelling is situated pretty much right downtown, nestled in a properly nice neighborhood, and it’s only a ten minute walk up to Northwest where there’s shops, restaurants, bars with live music playing outdoors, and all sorts of dispensaries. Because what’s Oregon without a little weed? 

We get these insane Korean style tacos and sit on a bench while eating them. There’s half-block sized little parks sprinkled all over Portland, and while most of the benches are already claimed by homeless types, we get one to ourselves and sit nice and close while eating the tacos. It’s a nice evening out, beautiful August weather. It’s in the mid-70s and I haven’t even broken out the long sleeves yet (unless I’m at work/school, which doesn’t really count) which is saying something, since me and my stupid scarred arms are insecure. 

That’s how you and I got to know each other better. 

Lived down the hall from each other for half a year in shitty, smelly freshman Temple dorms without speaking a word. You’d been pale, jumpy, and kind of weird. You would always take forever to brush your teeth in the mornings. Sometimes we’d end up in the bathroom, brushing our teeth at the same time, and I would get insecure about how short my teeth brushing was compared to yours, but we never really spoke. 

Not until our RA got the floor together for a monthly meeting and taught us how to make friendship bracelets while given free pizza. You and I and my roommate, Peter, were paired up and you made me a red and white bracelet (Temple colors) and I really couldn’t see it with long sleeves on. You had tied the bracelet on over a layer of thick white scars lining my wrist and hadn’t blinked an eye, said “you need more, that one looks lonely by itself” and a week later had shown up at my door with a blue and purple bracelet for me. 

You kept making them, we kept talking. At the beginning of junior year, both of my scarred forearms were decked out with multicolored string bracelets and they got so wet when I showered that my schoolwork would end up covered with water droplets. 

My skin got this rash from lack of sunlight, too much friction, and the dampness that the bracelets created. I cut them all off and decided that being insecure about my scars was sort of stupid, because there’s no getting rid of them, and the bracelets obviously didn’t work for long periods of time. 

You touch my arm now, not with any real meaning, just running your fingers down it and clasping my hand. I look at the tattoos on your right hand- the panther roaring off the back of it and the word “CARE” on your upper knuckles. You had gotten “TAKE CARE” written across them last year and I had thought it was cool, super cool, like all your ink is. 

I originally hadn’t wanted to get any tattoos but over the course of college, you got progressively more and more inked while I debated sitting there and letting an assortment of sharp needles buzz out a design onto my skin. Wondered if it would trigger some old part of me that missed the pain. 

We had discussed it, after you saw through my alleged fear of needles when I got my nose pierced and hardly flinched.

“I’m worried it’ll feel the same,” I had told you after your latest addition (a traditional lady with flowers in her hair, arm bent like Rosie the Riveter’s, the words BATTLE BORN curving around the side of her back) “you know, as…” I gestured at the scars littering my own arms and you had frowned seriously. 

“But it’s like a  _ tattoo  _ kind of pain, you know? It doesn’t make you want to hurt yourself, it just makes you want another tattoo.” I shrugged, not really comfortable talking about it with you, and you had let it go. There had also been the pressing insecurity of getting tattooed over my scars, and what an artist would think of them. 

Then you had looked at all your notebooks filled up with flash work and decided to become a tattoo artist. 

Sometimes I think I’ll let you give me one. Sometimes. 

“Do you want ice cream? There’s this place down the street called Salt and Straw with crazy flavors.” Your excited voice shakes me out of my thoughts, and I glance back over at you. 

“You’re like a walking guidebook.”

“Don’t insult me. They’ve got, like, cheese flavored ice cream.”

“Bleh,” I stick out my tongue dramatically. “Not interested.”

“No, that’s just one of them! They also have like lavender flavored, you know? Let’s try it.” I look at you and wonder if I’m only protesting ice cream because I’ve gained ten pounds of moving-stress weight on top of already not being the skinniest guy in town. Cheese/lavender flavored ice cream isn’t going to help.

“It’s my treat,” you persist, wiggling your eyebrows and grinning broadly.

“Fine,” I concede, watching the smile bloom on your face as you bounce off the bench and link your hand with mine, swinging it widely as we walk down the street. You get the lavender ice cream. It’s purple like the sky here at sunset and you let me try it and it tastes like lavender and honey and summertime. I get the chocolate brownie one because I’m a sucker for anything chocolate, and I probably get it all over my face as we walk down towards the Willamette while the sun fully sets.

It’s a forty five minute walk each way and finally dark by the time we arrive at the river. Bridges are lit up with cars driving over them and people sit in the waterfront park- homeless, students, couples and parents and guys like us- two boyfriends holding hands, gnawing on ice cream comes.

I look across the river and sigh contentedly, glad that you’re by my side. 

“I’m really glad we’re here,” I mumble quietly, squeezing your hand. You squeeze back. 

“Me too.” You turn your face from the river to me, your blue grey eyes deep and warm. “It feels like home." 

"You feel like home." I tell you, sappy and stupid. You don't even need to reply, just squeeze my hand, and I know you feel the same. 


	4. We Like to Party!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Remus Lupin buys a bong. Remus Lupin breaks a bong.

_ "Come here. Let me fix it." _

I had been considering partaking in the weed scene for quite a while. All summer long I had been thinking about it- back home in Philly, crashed out on my couch and doing all sorts of research, and during our move-in process once arriving. I’d smoked it before, obviously, back in college but after we graduated, I became more removed from the stoners in my life and didn’t have much of an excuse to smoke anymore, since neither of us were that big into it. 

Getting high in college had produced many different effects on me- for the most part, getting super happy, super hungry, and sometimes super horny. I always forgot about the sex, afterwards, which was sort of lame. You and I would smoke some joints, bang one out, and then fall asleep to wake up ten hours later with clear minds and no real recollections of what had happened the previous night. 

I’ve got two weeks until school starts and though I could spend it drawing up lesson plans and syllabi, (which I  _ do _ , I swear) I find myself taking walks around our neighborhood and being confronted by dispensary after dispensary. They all radiate this smell of warm funky nature, especially when someone opens the door, and I’m completely attracted to them. 

So one day, I enter a neat looking place called “Cannabliss” and find myself overwhelmed by the familiar skunky smell.

“Yo!” Says a voice from behind the counter. It’s a tall lady with long blonde hair and enough tattoos to rival yours. “Welcome to Cannabliss!”

“Thanks,” I tell her, hating social interactions. 

“What can I do for you today?” She’s standing over a counter and under said counter, just like at an ice cream shop, is jars of weed. So much weed. Remind me how this is legal, again? I’m blown away by how fucking epic this is, knowing all my stoner friends back in Philly are squirming around in jealousy right now.

“Um, I wanted some weed. And a… a way to smoke it. Like a bong, maybe?”

“Sure! You’re new to the scene?” Oh, it’s a  _ scene _ ? The weed scene is actually referred to by stoners and those who work at dispensaries as a scene? Holy shit!

“Yeah, I guess. I’ve smoked before, but I lived in an illegal state, and now… I’m free.” I hadn’t really meant to say that, but this lady smiles all big like it’s the best news she’s ever heard. 

“Well, my name’s Marlene, and I’ll hook you right up! Are you looking for a sativa or an indica, or a hybrid, maybe?” Thank god I’ve done research and used to hang out with potheads so I know what she’s talking about.

“Uh, like, a sativa, I think?”

“Sure! One of my favorite sativas is Strawberry Cough, which we have right here.” Marlene pulls out a huge jar of weed and shows it to me. Looks like weed. “15% THC content, so it’s not too strong.”

“Cool.” I look at the jar, then at Marlene, who’s still smiling expectantly. “Um, how much… is how much?” God, I fucking  _ hate  _ social interactions. “How much is, I mean-”

“A gram is probably this much.” She pulls on a pair of gloves and picks up a few nugs from the jar. “That’s ten bucks.” 

“Okay.”

“An eighth is around three grams, and that’s thirty dollars. A quarter is seven grams, and we charge fifty five.” My rather limited math skills inform me of a good deal.

“I’ll do a quarter, then.”

“Sounds good!” She weighs out the weed and slides it into a bag with the shop’s logo on it. “Let’s get you a bong, too, huh?”

“Yeah. I’ll just take the cheapest one.” She moves back around behind the counter and walks down towards the wall, pointing at a huge shelf of glass that no one should ever let me near. I’m the clumsiest motherfucker ever born, and had once tripped headlong into my aunt’s cabinet that housed her teacup collection, and hadn’t been allowed back for over three years. Some losses are hard to take. 

“How’s this one? Just twenty bucks.” Marlene pulls down a little green bong with a tiny weed leaf etched in the glass. It’s cute, not too big, and looks like it’ll get the job done. She throws in a cheap grinder and I buy it, leaving the dispensary feeling totally adult and epic, like I’ve just done something that should be illegal but isn’t, because I live in Oregon, and Oregon fucking rocks. 

I walk home and upon entering, see the corgi. It smiles at me, so I feel compelled to smile back. Stupid, I know. You keep me smiling even when you’re not here, by putting stolen corgi statues in the entryway. I’m in a good mood. I grind up the weed, pack it up in the bong, and open the window to the bathroom where I sit on the edge of the bathtub and spark up, giggling at the bubbling sound that the water in the bong makes as I torch the weed in the bowl.

After my first hit, I spend about five minutes coughing my lungs out because it’s been a minute since I hit a bong (or smoked weed at all). I remember when me and my old stoner friend Chris smoked out of his pipe while lounging around assorted parks in Philly, we would have about five bowls each to really start feeling good.

Once I’ve put five bowls of the bong behind me, I’ve realized that there might be a difference between a pipe bowl and a bong bowl. I turn on your dancing playlist (I exclusively listen to your playlists because you’ve got a kickass taste in music) and start giggling wildly as “Venus” by Lady Gaga blasts throughout the apartment. I dance back into the kitchen, and set the bong down hard on the counter, sort of loopy and out of my mind, and barely hear the crack of breaking glass because I’m dancing so hard. 

Lady Gaga screams “goddess of love, take me to your leader!” and I half sing along, imagining myself in some blacklit club with you pressed up next to me, and I miss you but I’m absolutely  _ blasted  _ and dancing around our tiny basement is so much fun that I forget about anything but jumping up and down for a while. 

I don’t think about what I must look like to any outsider. I definitely don’t think about what my future students would think of seeing their history teacher blazed out of his mind dancing to Lady Gaga in his kitchen. Songs pass- COIN, The 1975, more Gaga, Phoenix, Grouplove, and the fucking  _ Vengaboys.  _

I love your music taste. 

We like to Party! is the song that brings me back to earth, more or less, and I sit down at our rocky kitchen table out of breath while the Vengaboys (there’s women in the group, though, is it PC to call them Vengapeople? Vengagang?) sing about happiness being just around the corner. Fuck that, happiness is right here. Or maybe- I’m fucking hungry, and there’s a Taco Bell two blocks away. Happiness _is_ just around the corner!

Being high changes people’s priorities, and today I forget that I’m super high, red eyed and sort of stumbling everywhere I walk. I don’t notice the bong that I’ve already broken in the sink. I don’t think about the fact that eating even more Taco Bell will not help in my journey to stop being so fat. I think I’m hungry, that I love Taco Bell, and then I’m on the move.

The sun is out, the sky is blue, it’s beautiful, and… so are you? 

I call you on the way to Taco Bell because Dear Prudence has worked its way into my head and I miss you.

“Hey?” You say from the other end of the line and I try to imagine where you are right now- in some tattoo parlor that looks somewhat like our place because of the art up and down the walls. Buzzing machines, shiny piercing needles, scary looking dudes with stretched ears (possibly) named ‘Mad Eye’ (I mean, what the fuck kind of name is that?) yelling at you. Motorcycles, right? You’re tattooing motorcycles.

“I’ve joined the weed scene.” I tell you. Now the wind chimes from “Everywhere” by Fleetwood Mac are dancing sparkles in my mind and I laugh out loud. 

“You’ve what?”

“I’ve joined the weed scene! I bought a bong and everything! I might’ve broken it already. But I smoked it before I broke it. I’m super high, and I’m going to Taco Bell. Do you want anything?” Now you laugh, good natured and warm.

“Yeah, fuck it, why not? Get me whatever, I don’t know what they have.”

“Okay. How’s work? How’s motorcycles?”

“Good, yeah, the girl’s like twenty minutes late but she’s sweet so I don’t think I mind. And I’ve got all day for her, anyways. I’ll probably be home around four, but it depends on when she shows up.”

“Cool, cool. Mega cool. Haha!” I’m in such a stellar mood and the weather is so  _ bitchingly  _ epic out west that I can’t help but just laugh in happiness. “Fuck, Sirius, I’m stoked.”

“I’m so glad you’re stoked.”

“Okay, I’m almost at Taco Bell, so I’ve gotta go. See you later, good luck with motorcycle girl! Mwah!”

“Thanks, babe. Mwah mwah.” I hang up and promptly walk face first into the door of Taco Bell because it says “PULL” and my dumbass decided to push. I order all sorts of shit once I get in, just reading stuff I see off the menu. The guy working there calls me “dude” and has his visor drawn so low over his eyes that I assume he’s just as stoned as I am, and I can’t blame him.

I worked at Wawa for two years back in high school and sometimes got fucked up before going in. Making sandwiches is a lot more fun when you’re blitzed out on Xanax. No one had weed, back then. We had to make do with prescription pills and over the counter shit like NyQuil, Robitussin, flower seeds from the hardware store. Anything that would get us fucked. 

You’re calling me by the time I’m walking back home. 

“What’s up? Missed me?” I ask, walking into the street on a green light and nearly getting hit by a car. Everything is glowy and shiny because of the sunshine, reflecting glittering light that Portland doesn’t get most of the year, and I stagger back towards the sidewalk to avoid my untimely death.

“Yeah, you know it. Motorcycle girl cancelled so I’m coming home now. I’ll be back in, like, ten minutes.” You want to buy a motorcycle, always have, and I never let you in Philly because people there drive like they need serious therapy for how suicidal they are. You drive our shitty Subaru to work and when I start at the school, you said you’d be willing to bike (manually) but would rather buy a motorbike. We have yet to discuss the purchase of it.

“Epic, cool, amazing!” 

“Super cool! I’ll see you soon. Mwah.” You hang up again and I sit around in our basement, stuffing tacos into my face and wishing you were there. Then you are. It’s epic, cool, amazing. I hear your footsteps on the floor above us and then the jingling of your lanyard as you canter downstairs, then the unlocking of the door. I’m sitting on the couch covered in nacho cheese, still blitzed, and I’m filled with indescribable joy when I see you.

Tall, dark, and handsome. Sirius motherfucking Black. That’s your honorary middle name, and your honorary last name, because your original middle name was your dad’s first name and we don’t talk about him, and the name ‘Black’ references the fucked up family that we don’t talk about, and one day you’ll be Sirius motherfucking Lupin but neither of us have the balls to propose, so you live your life with technically one name that you never liked that much, either.

I always liked it. Brightest star in the sky, I would tell you, and it’s true. You’re my star. 

You’re wearing a t-shirt of some DIY band out of Philly, and have been wearing these on rotation ever since we moved here in order to impress your coworkers at the shop. You’ve got a face full of overgrown stubble and your long black hair is pulled back with a traditional red and white bandana, today. Khaki shorts, Vans, and these socks with traditional tattoos printed on them so it looks super crazy when they meet your legs- which are also printed with traditional tattoos. 

“Hello!”

“Oh my god, look at you!” You say, ruffling my overgrown hair as you drop your bag on the food and crash on the couch next to me. “Your eyes are  _ red.  _ You should invest in some eye drops.”

“I don’t care if people know if I’m high! Everyone here is high!”

“Yeah, just wait ‘til you start work. Eye drops might come in handy.”

“Noo, I’m not going to work high!”

“You say that, but just wait until a bunch of seventh graders are terrorizing you. What did you get?” I give you the food I got you, and we sit on the couch and eat together. “Moony, I can’t believe we moved to a city with a kickass food scene and you go to Taco Bell.”

“I know what I want, and I get what I like. And I want.”

“I can’t understand you.”

“Turn your hearing aid up?!” I shout, making a twisting gesture by my ear, and you kick at me with your tattoo socks. 

“Okay, where’s this bong? I want to hit it. Damn, I should’ve waited to eat. Everything tastes better high.” 

“Yeahhh, that’s true. Too bad, too late.”  I drag you off the couch and into the kitchen, where the discarded bong sits on the kitchen counter. I had broken it, apparently. Set it down too hard while dancing to ARTPOP and now there’s a crack lacing up the side. 

“Ah, fuck.” I mumble, touching it gingerly.

“Come here, let me fix it.” You say easily, digging around in a drawer. 

“You can fix it?”

“Duh, I’m a handy guy, I can fix anything!” It’s true, you get used to fixing shit when you date Remus Lupin, and it takes you about five minutes to super glue the glass back together. “I hope we don’t get a weird high off of smoking glue,” you tell me, lit up blue by the paint on the bathroom walls as you touch the lighter to the bowl. Your face disappears in a cloud of smoke when you exhale.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i got super high yesterday to celebrate american independence and smoking 4 joints and then breaking my own bong inspired this chapter lol


	5. Remus Insurance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A bike ride goes wrong

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw for (a brief) discussion of negative body image, past eating disorders, and past self harm.

_"I'll walk you home."_

I start off the day standing in front of the mirror and wondering where I've gone wrong. It's just that sometime in the spring, don't ask me why, food started tasting so much _better._ I didn't not enjoy it before but my medication had sort of been fucking with me and I'd been rendered appetite-less, despite my enjoyment of food. And I guess it must be the meds I switched on to. It's hard to treat mental illnesses without your physical self getting involved, and I can color myself disappointed by the weight I've gained.

“Sirius, I’m officially fat. I’ve gained like fifteen pounds since we moved here and it’s awful. I look like a clown.” I tell you on this fine Sunday morning where you get a blessed day off from work. I stand in front of the one full-sized mirror in our house in my boxers and stare at myself, frowning. I pinch at my belly, then my thighs, then turn around and try to look at my back. You’re lying in bed, frowning at me. You’ve got your sad eyes on. Oh, nevermind.

“Sorry.” I say, grabbing a shirt and pulling it on, ignoring the blush creeping up my neck. “Forget it.”

“You're fine, Remus. Do you want to go on a bike ride?” You ask, ignoring the topic of my body the way you always do. Sometimes I forget things, like sometimes you forget things. We have fucked up pasts, so when you get a bit too drunk on a night out I’ll get quiet and sullen and when I talk resentfully about how much weight I’ve gained, you just shut down and won’t talk to me about it. 

“Yeah, sure. That’ll be nice.” You slide out of bed, hair messy from sleep, finally not held back by a bandana or headband so it falls into your face. Still frowning. “Sorry, Sirius.” I tell you as you crouch down by a drawer to find some clothes to bike in. You straighten up with a pair of nylon shorts in your hand. 

“You’re a little chubby, Moony, but you’re still a sexy motherfucker. It’s apples and oranges- your sexiness and how much you weigh.” 

“Right.” You’re still frowning, though. Partly because you know I don't believe you and partly because whenever we discuss weight, you turn to overthinking things that you don't have to. Because you might considered yourself recovered but both of us know that isn't one hundred percent true. Besides, does anyone _really_ fully recover? Physically, yes, you gain back the weight and put on muscle and tattoo yourself to feel better but there's always the frustration of constant comparison, thinking you haven't done enough or, realistically, have done too much. Eaten too much, sat around too much, not paid attention to what you ate for too many days in a row. I feel guilty now for bringing thoughts of weight and pounds and numbers back into your head.

I never knew you when things were the worst, it had all happened in high school, but you had told me some things about it- more than about your family, which we never talk about. You had been hospitalized, under a hundred pounds, forced to drink Ensure shakes when you wouldn’t finish a meal in a certain amount of time. Had spent years waging war against food and had finally worked out some sense of normality by the end of high school. Until high school ended.

Freshman year of college, you had been rail thin and lost the muscle you'd gained back all over again because you had twelve meal swipes per week and challenged yourself by using as few of them as possible. You’d spent the next summer doing inpatient and during sophomore year, when we finally started dating, everything had been more or less under control. You’re not scrawny now and that’s good because I never liked it when you were. 

You’ve got muscles, nice strong muscles that feel super epic when I touch you- especially your legs or arms because if I run my hand down your leg I feel a soft upper thigh, then hard muscle, then the bone of your knee, then more muscle, a little softness on your calf, and then the bone of your ankle. You’re very tactile. 

I suppose I am too, with the scars and now the shimmery white stretch marks across my thighs. They blend in with all the white raised scars up and down my legs- worse than anywhere on my thighs, and on my shoulders where everything is ridged and cut into pieces. No normal skin there. It hurts to be twenty four and still in the throes of teenage self hatred. 

You pop up behind me and give me a hug from behind, squeezing your nice strong arms around me. Your scratchy face rubs against my skin and I twitch a bit as you kiss up my neck, pressing a particularly wet one against my jaw.

“You’re gorgeous, Moony. You’re my sexy guy.” Your hands loosen, you detach your face from the hickies you’ve left behind, and you rest your head against my shoulder while staring at us in the mirror. “Mr. Handsome.”

“Shut up.”

“You are, though. I wish you could see yourself through my eyes.” I don’t reply to that, just stare at myself. Try to think about me, but unbiased.

I’m tall, super tall, like 6’2 levels of tall. I’ve got curly golden brown hair that looks auburn in some light, and is growing too long down the back so it looks sort of like a mullet. My eyes are a light brown, sometimes amber in the right light. 

I’ve got a real fuckin’ schnozz of a nose that I pierced in an effort to distract from how big it is, and thin lips: the former of which has a big scar running across the bridge of it, and the latter has a scar curving down from the bottom lip and stretching down my neck. There’s another one that passes through my eyebrow and down across my eye- one that you call my Anakin scar because I guess I look more like him than Kylo Ren.

I hadn't had those scars until junior year of high school and they're a permanent reminder of the worst year of my life, when I underwent a mental break from reality in an overlapping fit of mania and depression when I hadn't just wanted to die, I'd wanted to ruin myself completely. I never wanted to be looked at again. I wanted to be someone else. So I ended up Remus Lupin just diagnosed bipolar and with three huge, permanent scars marring my face forever. They're faded white now but still broad and raised, and I get my fair share of stares from people on the streets.

Moving on, my body’s a big shitshow (I guess I’m getting biased here, oh well) because my shoulders aren’t too broad so I’m built to be gawky but I filled out after college ended and now have a definite belly and legs that are too big and soft. I’m weird looking. All of me is too big, but you draw me away from the mirror by spinning me around and grinning.

“Bike ride!”

“Bike ride,” I concede with a sigh that just gets you grinning even further. To be honest, despite all the stupid excuses we’ve told each other, one of the main reasons we left for Portland is the bikeability of the city. I’m not really big on exercising, (I had gone for a run once two years ago and had woken up the next day so sore that I vowed to never do it again) but you and I have always been into bike rides. I could ride all day, if it comes down to it, and we do just that- biking miles and miles out of the city towards Sauvie Island. 

There’s a killer ascent on the way up and my legs are shaking with exertion by the time we reach the top. You’re right in front of me- I always manage to keep up with you even though you’re way stronger. I like the view from the back, though, seeing your tattooed legs pump when you stand up on the bike as we go uphill, or the way you stand on the pedals while your hair whips in the wind as we head down. 

When we finally make it to the island, about 15 miles out of Portland, I all but collapse when you pull over to the side of the trail.

“We’ve still got the journey back!” You remind me as I put the kickstand up and collapse into the grass. We could’ve picked a better location, sure, but I’m staying put in this grassy field next to the bike path for the time being and you prop up your bike next to mine, sinking down into the soft grass next to me. We lie together for a while, talking about the shapes of clouds because that’s something people in love do.

That one looks like a chair, this one like a camera. One of them is shaped like a heart and we watch it pass by overhead together. Blocks out the sun for a moment, casts your face into shade, then continues. 

You brought sandwiches, PB&J like we’re kids, and you sit with your knees up and your elbows hanging over them. There’s a spider inside of its web tattooed on one kneecap, and a floral mandala on the other. The spider is one of your most recent tattoos, done by one of your buddies back in Philly- the last one you got back at home. I know you miss the scene back home, with people who let you tattoo them not giving a shit if you’d been apprenticed or not, but you’ve grudgingly admitted that Portland is probably the mecca for great tattoos, and I know you can judge one when you see it.

We sit for an hour. The sun moves overhead and turns our shade into a sweltering patch of grass, so we bike a little farther down to the lake where soft waves lap against the sandy shore and we ditch our bikes on the ground a little ways behind us as we sit in the sun. 

“Nature’s kind of indie, don’t you think?” You ask.

“Yeah, man. Indie as fuck. Totally tubular.”

“Don’t make fun of me, I’m just saying.” You huff, shrugging your shoulders. “I think I’m happier out here, with all the green.”

“Just wait ‘til winter. Never ending rain.”

“Pessimist.” I am, though, that’s the problem. I can’t bear to think positive things and it’s taken a toll on my life. We hang around the beach a while longer, talking about hopeful things while I grow progressively more and more sunburnt until you tell me I look like a tomato and we should start heading back, because there’s no lights on the path and it’ll be dumb as hell to bike back in the dark. 

I agree. Everything is fine until we’re going down a hill. Wind in my face, a nice cooldown from the ride up, and I hit a small bump. Ordinarily, this would have been fine. Today, however, my bike decides that it wants to raise some hell, and my handlebars completely twist 90 degrees forwards and I pitch forwards, absolutely _flying_ over them and off of the bike completely, catching good air before hitting the ground with my palms out, scraping them from here into next week. 

My bike crashes down on the path behind me and I let off a string of expletives while a young family bikes by, little kids goggling at me as I continue unashamed- “goddamn fucking _jesus_ shitting fucking _fuck!”_

You’ve gone down the hill, not bothering to look behind you because I’m always right on your heels. Always except today.

“Son of a _bitch!”_ I shout, rising to my feet to deliver a hefty kick to the blue frame of my bike. My palms are bright red and wet with blood. They sting from the gravel imprinted in them, and my knees have fared worse- all nasty grey and gooey red. “ _Fuck!”_ Blood runs from my knees down my scraped calves and I wipe my aching palms on my shirt- leaving creepy red handprints behind. 

The bike doesn’t fare much better. As soon as I get my hands on it, I leave behind smeary red traces of blood. The handlebars are incredibly loose, swirling up and down as I pull them. God, what a disaster. They had been a bit shaky on the way up but nothing of this sort, and I realize that the stupid, innocent bump in the road had been the last straw in knocking them completely loose.

I sit by the path like a petulant child for twenty minutes before I see your strained face biking back up the hill, tattooed legs pumping as you hold yourself up on the bike.

“Moony!” You exclaim, puffing loudly as you dismount and drop the bike down by your side, moving in a fluid motion to kneel down beside me. “You- what happened?”

“Check my handlebars.” I explain, demonstrating the useless wobbly cohesion that they’ve taken on. “They’re trashed.”

“Oh, they’re just loose. And _you_ are bleeding.” 

“I flew over the handlebars, it was a shitshow. What do we do now?” You stare at me, mouth a tight white line. We’re twelve miles from home and I’d consider walking them if there was a hell of a lot more than a pot of gold at the other end. All that will be waiting for me is a grinning corgi and an ice bath, if I’m being honest. 

“Well, I guess I’ll walk you home.” You shrug as though you aren’t kidding and I shove you lightly on the shoulder, not feeling so bad about the smear of blood I leave behind on your shirt. 

“I’m not walking home.”

“No, you’re not. C’mere.” You get back up and hold your hands out in front of you, not caring that I touch my still stinging bloody palms to yours to get lifted back up. “We’ll find a bike shop, get them tightened. I have a little bike tool kit, maybe I should start bringing it along, d’you think?”

“Yeah, probably. I break everything I touch.” 

“Mhm,” you hum in agreement, pulling out your phone and searching up bike shops nearby. “Alright, there’s one, like, twenty minutes away. I love Portland life.” Because there’s got to be a bike shop twenty minutes away from you no matter where you are in the city. We walk our bikes down the streets. I protest, at first, because you could ride and meet me there and you wouldn’t have to waste your time walking with me but you'll hear no such thing. 

At the shop, it takes them about two seconds flat to tighten my handlebars. The woman working there shows us a little bike kit that you bashfully tells her you already own, just hadn’t thought to bring along. 

By the time we finally get home, it’s been dark for an hour. I don’t have a light on my bike so I spend that hour running my front wheel into your back one and laughing to cover up the fact that everything hurts and it’s hard as hell to ride a bike when the palms of your hands have been ripped open.

“I’m never going for a bike ride again,” I grumble when we finally get to bed- my palms and legs cleaned and bandaged. “I’m a liability.”

“Yeah, if we get married, the court should offer Remus insurance.” I snort laughter and don’t press the odd unmentioned topic there- marriage. We’ve been dating for four and a half years and still aren’t engaged. I think we’re both terrified of commitment, despite your love for permanently inking your body, and the scars all over my skin. And maybe those are reminders that I’m not perfect or not reliable enough to be a husband. We both think about our pasts and deem ourselves too fucked up to spend the rest of our lives with each other, but we’ve been getting on pretty well so far, haven’t we?

I think of asking _do you want to, then? get married, I mean?_ but I don’t because a variation of those words go through my head at least twenty times a day but they never leave my lips. We fall asleep in the warm silence of our safe bedroom and I drift off thinking about what my vows would sound like. 


	6. Eight to Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Remus starts his job as a teacher

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> to imagine mr hipster remus lupin as a modern day young teacher is really one of my favorite things in the world... yes i will write many assorted chapters of him at work/school bc it's just such a wonderful thing to think about

_"Have a good day at work."_

“Do I have a right to be nervous?” I ask you, knowing what the answer is going to be. You look over at me fiddling with my shirt- the same button down I wore to orientation. It’s dark burgundy with little white dots all over it, and I wear dark brown trousers that make me look marginally thinner. 

“No, Moony, you’re teaching  _ seventh  _ graders. They’re gonna think you’re some cool young guy teaching them all about the atrocities of American history. You’re gonna be the  _ hot  _ teacher.” A useless blush creeps up my neck. 

“I was awful as a seventh grader. And my classmates were awful. They made my teachers cry.” I have a distinct memory of my band teacher being so upset by the lack of effort our class put into practice that she burst into tears and stormed out of the classroom, leaving us to do whatever the hell we wanted for the rest of the day. And year. She never came back. I hope that doesn't happen to me.

“Yeah…” You trail off thoughtfully, thinking back to the tribulations of seventh grade. “I got suspended, like, twice. I was evil. And emo.”

“Weren’t we all?” Seventh grade might have been full of teen angst but everything just got worse for me as high school went on, and I shudder to think of sophomore or junior year, when things really took a turn for the worse. Good thing I don’t have to deal with incredibly mentally ill teenagers just yet.

This morning had been something disgustingly domestic. We’d both been up early, you for reasons unknown. School starts at 8:00 sharp and I’d been up at 6:30, hoping to get there by 7:30 to most likely pace my new classroom, wearing footprints of anxiety into the tiled floor. Your shop doesn’t open until 10 but you have to buy everyone coffee and set up machines because I sometimes forget you’re still an apprentice- yet that still means you get to sleep in.

I’d stepped out of the shower into an apartment smelling like pancakes and you’d beamed at me like a madman upon seeing me in my halfway fancy clothes.

“You made pancakes?” I had been surprised, not by the quality of your cooking but why you’d done it in the first place. 

“Cr ê pes!” You corrected me brightly. “With berries! Because it’s your big day!” I’d felt like a child going to their first day of seventh grade instead of an adult going to teach his first day of seventh grade, but I’d accepted your cr êpes because you’re sort of a bomb ass chef. And it makes up for all the times I've never been cooked a special breakfast throughout my life. The first time it ever happened had been senior year of college when we'd moved into an off campus apartment and after I'd had a bad night, you'd made waffles in the morning to cheer me up. I'd teared up and you'd asked me what was wrong while I held my hands to my face and said something like "no one's ever cared enough to make me breakfast before" and it had been one of the many moments where I'd known you were something like forever and fucking always.

Today, you walk me out the door and kissed me all nice on the front step.  “Have a good day at work.” You look at me with this syrupy warm look of pride and love and I know that I’m blushing even though we’ve been dating four years and I should be used to this by now. But look, it’s my first day at a real job when eight years ago I was convinced I’d never make it past seventeen, much less twenty four. 

I drive our Subaru twenty minutes out to the suburb where the school is. It looks at home among the other Subarus and Priuses that other teachers drive. It’s weird to fit in here. What doesn’t fit in, however, is the motorcycle that roars by and startles me enough to jump a little bit. I’m generally unsurprised when the rider of the motorcycle shakes out a dark afro as she takes her helmet off and calls after me on my way into the building.

“Mr. Lupiiiin!” I jump again, always too surprised, and see Mary MacDonald headed right towards me.

“Oh god, please don’t call me that.”

“Better get used to it! How’re you?” Mary’s very talkative and loud, which I was thankful for at orientation. She seems just as young as I am, if not a little older, and definitely more  _ fun.  _ I wonder what her biology classes are like. 

“Good, sort of nervous. You?”

“Excited! You should be too! I love meeting all the new students, it’s so much fun. Don’t be nervous, anyways, Remus, you’ll crush it. It’s just teaching, not like you’re a doctor. It’s technically impossible to mess up.”

“You think?” We enter the building and I get a weird rush at using my plastic ID badge that’s hung on an Eagles lanyard that I bought back in Philly when I needed a lanyard and it’s all they had at the 7-11 down our corner. I never liked football, but when we won the Super Bowl back in 2018, I got the highest I’d ever been and danced down the street at midnight in the middle of the celebrating crowd. 

Portland doesn’t go crazy for sports and it’s a stark difference from the cities on the East Coast. There’s a row of them in succession from north to south- Boston, New York, Philly, Baltimore, and D.C. All five have an assortment of sports teams, some successful and some less so, but you’d dragged me to all sorts of events in order to see as many teams win as possible. 

I’ve seen the Patriots, Yankees, Ravens, and Nationals all win home games but not nearly as many times as I’ve sat shivering in the stands of Lincoln Financial Field watching dudes clad in skintight leggings and shoulder pads tackle each other in ways that look suspiciously sexual. You’d laughed your ass off when I told you football was the gayest sport out there because of all that hot and heavy physical contact and then said that’s why you liked it so much. 

I smile just thinking about you and Mary glances over at me as we walk up to the second floor. Seventh grade floor. She stops outside a doorway which is decorated with stickers and streamers. The words “MS. MACDONALD” are designed in a glittery arch over the door, and there’s all sorts of drawings of cells stuck onto the door. Fucking biology, man. I could never get behind it. 

“Best of luck, Remus!” Mary is telling me as she unlocks her door. “See you at lunch, maybe?”

“Yeah, for sure. See ya.” I tell her, wandering down to my own classroom. I hadn’t even thought to write my name on the door and hurriedly make a very halfhearted sign on a piece of paper that says “Mr. Lupin - U.S. History”. Nowhere near as exciting as Mary’s but it’ll do the job of getting students to my class without too much confusion, and that’s my main goal. 

There’s fifteen minutes to eight o’clock and I do just as I knew I would: pace up and down the floor, scared of a bunch of awkward thirteen year olds. When the first students come trickling in I greet them as brightly as I can, wanting to be welcoming, and stick them in assigned seats. I’m a proponent of seating charts because I know how miserably awkward it can be when you’ve got no friends in a class and have to find your own seat. Also because it helps me learn kids’ names better. 

When the first bell of the morning rings, I take a deep breath to steel myself before walking up to the front of the room and feeling twenty pairs of eyes on me.

“Hi, guys. I’m Remus,” I catch myself, realizing that none of these kids are supposed to call me by my first name, and quickly continue, “Lupin. Mr. Lupin! I’m new here, and this is actually my first year of real teaching.”

“We’re your guinea pigs!” Some kid yells. I think his name is Alex. 

“Well, actually, the kids I taught last year were guinea pigs. I was student teaching last year in Philadelphia, and I just moved here over the summer from there. I went to Temple University, and I’m from Pennsylvania originally.” The kids stare at me. “Lots of history there! We’ll learn all about Philly this year. That’ll be fun. Speaking of what we’re learning this year…” I read through the class syllabus and spend the rest of class orchestrating exhausting icebreakers. 

It’s exactly what I was expecting when it comes to the first day of school teaching seventh graders. I eat a lumpy sandwich I made for myself in Mary’s classroom while keeping up a rather fast conversation with her, but I hold my own. Then I have two more classes, a grading period, and before I know it- the school day is over. Eight to three with no meetings after school, no clubs to run, no kids to tutor- I’ve been set free. 

It’s just as joyful as it was back in middle school, to walk out of the building in the mid afternoon, still-summer sunlight, and know I’ve got the rest of the day to do whatever I want. Most of which involves you. 


	7. Living Flash

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lily Evans does dream interpretation at the breakfast table

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yes, i am in fact living vicariously through sirius black in terms of tattoos i'd like. i'm fictionally giving them to him. the "no saviors" tattoo is a reference to the song "cardinals" by the wonder years if you'd like to explore some of sirius's music taste (newsflash: it's essentially my own)

_"I dreamt about you last night."_

I’m standing around trying to figure out what to cook for dinner when my phone rings. I’m glad it’s you because I really don’t like phone calls unless it’s your voice I’m hearing.

“Hello!” I tell you, hoping for some fun and interesting news, but am not rewarded with anything of that variety.

“Hey, babe.” Your voice is already bashful and a little hesitant like you’ve got some not-so-good announcement to bestow upon me. “Um, so. You remember motorcycle girl?” I’ve heard enough about your annoying motorcycle tattoo and the half-cracked girl getting it to be familiar with her nickname now.

“Yeah?”

“Well… would you mind if she, like, stayed the night? She’s really nice and kind of homeless and I feel so bad, so I sort of offered up our couch. So she’s already sort of staying. So I shouldn’t have even asked. I guess I’m telling. Whoops!” You do this thing where you always ask forgiveness rather than permission, and I hold back a sigh. 

“Umm, that’s fine, I guess. What’s her name?”

“Lily.” You hesitate. “Sorry, Remus, for not asking.” You always use my first name when you’re acting genuine.

“Oh, it’s fine. She’s eating dinner with us?”

“Yeah, she’s coming home from the studio with me.” I don’t ask how, because you ride a bike, and you don’t tell me. “I’ll see you in like twenty minutes?”

“Yeah.”

In twenty minutes, I manage to cook a very bad stir fry for all of us to force down and hope that my awful cooking will be an excuse to get this girl out of our house. It’s not that I’m pissed about you bringing some stranger home, it’s just that I love having free time with you uninterrupted. Since I started work, it seems that you and I get less and less time together- moments in the evening when we’re both home and two days on the weekends, but other than that we’re still adjusting to the new schedule. And now you’ve come up with an impulsive decision to make without asking me and I’m not  _ mad,  _ I swear I’m not, just a little wounded.

I hear your footsteps overhead like always, this time joined by another pair. The two of you laugh and joke on your way downstairs and I plaster on a fake smile as you jog down the stairs and through the door with a redheaded girl hot on your heels.

“Hey, Moony!” You kiss me, drop your bag on the couch, and gesture at the red haired girl next to you. “This is Lily. I gave her the motorcycle tattoo.” Lily smiles at me and I smile back. She’s wearing a tank top and turns around to show me a back full of plastic wrap; evidently, the tattoo has been finished. Under the shining wrap, I see a roaring dark motorcycle with flames the color of Lily’s hair blazing behind it.

“Oh, wow, that’s so cool! Badass!” 

“Thanks, man!” Lily says. Her voice is hoarse, like she’s a smoker, and she extends a hand to me. Her arms and face are covered in freckles and her green eyes flash at me. “Your name’s Moony?” I shake her hand and blush uselessly at her mention of the nickname. Sirius, my old friend Peter, and I all had nicknames for each other in college. 

Peter had been Wormtail because of this awful rattail hairstyle he ended up with after a drunken haircut during freshman year. I’d been dubbed Moony after flashing my bare ass at the cops during Philly pride. You’d been called Padfoot because of your terrifying tendency to creep around with silent footsteps and always manage to speak up on people. 

These days, I can hear your footsteps on the ceiling overhead when you get home.

And I don’t call you Padfoot anymore because one night you’d gotten half sad and half mad and said “Fuck, Remus, would you please not call me that anymore?” I’d been confused and asked why, asked what’s wrong with it, and you’d gone and said something about how you’d spent your childhood tiptoeing around your house to avoid the unwanted attention of your parents. It hadn’t been something accidental, your very soft footsteps, it had been something you and your younger brother had picked up to avoid abuse and I’d stopped calling you it since then. 

I’m still your Moony, though.

“No, my name’s Remus, that’s just a nickname.” I tell Lily. She’s not listening, anyways, and she might’ve caught my name but who knows. You watch her too, like she’s a small animal to be wary of, and your dark eyes follow her as she moves around the basement like it’s the most fascinating place she’s ever been.

“I love your decor, guys! So retro, so rustic!” Lily wears her black tank top and a pair of black and white athletic shorts, and a very beaten up pair of black Vans. She’s very thin and there’s bruises on her knees, scratches on her freckled arms, and inked marks of various tattoos shining dark lines on her pale skin. 

“Thanks.” You tell her, moving closer to me and sending me a look with your eyes that says  _ sorry _ . “Did you make dinner?” This question is directed to me and I nod, happy for something else to put my mind to.

“Yeah, a stir fry.” I beckon you into the kitchen and you follow, leaving Lily to stand at the wall admiring your posters from shows back in Philly. I used to think of it mentally as ‘back home’ for a while until I realized that Portland is home, now. It didn’t hurt to change my mental wording, thinking about it as Philly instead of home base, and that’s okay by me.

“How long is she staying?” I whisper once we’re through a separate doorway from our guest. 

“A few nights, at most. She’s cool, Moony, don’t worry. Just needed a place to crash, and she’s so sweet, I couldn’t turn her down. We’ve got a spare couch.” I really don’t have a case to argue and just shrug endearingly. Lily talks up a storm during dinner and seems to enjoy my half hearted cooking so much that there’s none left over. I wonder what she eats while sleeping rough. If she eats. 

After dinner, you want to get a bike ride in before sunset and I’ve got homework to grade, so I’m left alone with Lily and my bad conversational skills.

“Thanks so much, again.” She tells me while drying the dishes I’ve just washed. “I don’t want to be a nuisance, or anything. I really appreciate this.” I hand her the pan I’ve just finished cleaning and lean back against the sink, feeling the line of water soak through my shirt.

“No problem. Do you, uh, stay in shelters, usually?” She hands the dry pan back to me to put away. There’s bracelets hanging on her thin wrists, reminding me of my own ones in the past. 

“Sometimes, yeah. Usually in the winter when the weather’s bad. I’d been staying at this campsite sort of place near University Park, you know?” I don’t know, but I have a vague assumption that it’s way up north, up by the Columbia River and the Washington border. “But the cops kept sweeping it and I got sick of it all. Came down south, wanted a tattoo, met Sirius, and here I am! How long have you two been together?”

“Four years, now.”

“Cute! Not engaged?” I shrug lamely. 

“Too scared to ask him.”

“I’m sure he’ll say yes. I love weddings, man. Got to go to my sister’s last year, what a night that was! I got so drunk. Do you have any siblings?”

“No, I’m an only child. Sirius has a brother, though. Younger.”

“Aw, cute! Where’s he from, by the way? Sirius? Like, I can tell he’s not white but I just can’t place the face.” I’ve moved slowly back into the living room over the course of the conversation and take a seat at the table where my work is while Lily sits down on the couch. You’d thrown some blankets and extra pillows onto it for her to make into a proper bed, but she doesn’t seem keen on making it just yet.

“Oh, I guess you could call him Middle Eastern? His mom’s Pakistani, dad’s Egyptian.” This is essentially all I know about your family. I know your parents’ names and have seen their faces in photographs- your mom’s sharp face wrapped in a hijab staring boldly at the camera, your dad tall and towering with his hand on your shoulder as you sat next to your younger brother. 

“Cool! That’s much more exciting than being white, you know? So much more culture. What have I got? Irish blood? Not much in it for me.” I mumble an agreement. I’m not even European (although I suppose all non-native Americans are in the end) and my family had lived in the Pennsylvania/Ohio area for as long as I can think back. “Have you traveled?” Lily asks me.

“Not much, just up and down the East Coast a bit. You?”

“Been to Canada, down to Mexico, just the west.” She wraps her freckled arms around her knees and continues talking about her travels while I start marking up homework. I come to realize that it’s sort of nice to sit here and have someone to talk to, even if she’s a bit chatty. You return from your bike ride about an hour later, sweaty and tired but not exhausted enough to miss asking me to join you for a shower. 

Lily had finally shut up with a book of mine and her eyes barely flickered over us while I abandoned my work and joined you. I could map the tattoos on your body with my eyes closed and seeing you naked under a shower of steamy water reminds me of that. 

My favorite is the piece you got across your collarbones and upper chest- two shaking hands with the words “WE’RE NO SAVIORS” wound around them. It’s a Wonder Years reference you’ve explained to me many times over but I’ve always been more into indie music than pop punk. It’s all clean dark lines and there’s two traditional flowers marking the edges of it- red and green splayed across your sharp shoulders. 

You’ve got a half finished moth on your stomach, stretched wings ending right above your belly button. It’s just linework for now but you’ve planned bright, bold colors for it- as the rest of your tattoos are. I dream about them that night. 

I dream you and me in bed, moving warm against each other and when I touch certain spots on your body, the ink there comes to life. The half finished moth flaps its wings and flies up your belly, the traditional lady on your arm shakes out her hair, the spider on your knee starts crawling up its web. You’re an image struck with dark ink and moving color- a living flash sheet but your lips and eyes stay the same so I can’t look away from the shifting artwork of  _ you.  _ Sirius Black. 

“I dreamt about you last night.” I tell you in the kitchen the next morning as I stick the coffee pot on to warm up. 

“What’s  _ that _ ?” Lily asks before you can reply, stumbling sleepily into the kitchen. I feel bad because we’ve woken her up from her sleep on the couch, but it’s got to be better than on the streets. She’s pointing at the small bronze coffee pot. 

“Oh, it’s Turkish.” You explain. “It tastes better and it’s cheap, too. Plus Remus likes flavoring it.” I throw something to flavor the coffee into the pot every morning, the ingredient changing depending on the season. Cloves in the winter, lavender in the spring, cinnamon in the fall and usually cardamom or ginger in the summer. I’ve been on a ginger kick recently but sometimes add maple syrup if I’m feeling a bit crazy. 

“Do you want a cup?” I ask Lily, who nods. We all sit down to eat cereal and drink coffee together like a big happy family.

“You were talking about dreams?” She asks, and I feel my face flush a bit. You give me a curious grin that clearly reads  _ I’m sure it was something sexy  _ and you’re right, of course, but Lily doesn’t need to know that. 

“Yeah… all of Sirius’s tattoos came to life. They were all moving around. It was crazy.” Lily raises her eyebrows over her mug of coffee and looks back and forth from you to me.

“Tattoos in dreams with significant others usually means that  _ you _ ,” she points at me, “have been overlooking something in the relationship. Like Sirius is trying to express something you can’t see.” Both of us frown and swap confused looks. “It may be underlying.” It may also be bullshit. 

“Anything you want to confess?” I ask you in a joking way and you just frown further before shaking your head and taking a bite of cereal, crunching loudly to add noise in what’s turning out to be an awkward sort of conversation. I look back over at Lily who shrugs like her job is done. Whatever it is I may or may not be overlooking, it’s clearly not something you’re up to discussing at breakfast with your homeless tattoo client. 

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to assume anything.” Lily says loudly, pouring more cereal into her bowl.

“No worries.” You get up and turn away from the table leaving me wondering if Lily really  _ is  _ right about this dream interpretation. She now raises her ginger eyebrows at me and I shrug helplessly. She shrugs right back at me and returns to her cereal while I sigh loudly and wish, not for the first time, that Lily wasn’t really here. 


	8. You're the World

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Remus is taken clubbing

_"Take my seat."_

On Saturday afternoon, Lily stumbles down the stairs to our basement and throws the door open in a show of excited bravado.

“Remus!” She exclaims upon seeing me. “I’ve got great big plans for tonight!” Today, you’re busy at work since Saturday is the busiest day at your shop. I hadn’t been aware of any plans made by anyone, not knowing when you would finish up at the shop, and it’s safe to say that I’m a little worried about whatever Lily might have in mind.

“Um.” I tell her weakly, gripping my book like a shield. “What do you have in mind?”

“I got some MDMA!” She holds out a handful of funny colored pills. “And I want to go clubbing.”

“Ohh, I don’t know if that’s a great idea.” I’ve always been the type to think through crazy plans before going through with them. It’s led me to a lifetime of missing out, especially in high school when my friends went on a streak of exploring abandoned places and had returned with cool stories, cooler pictures, and no criminal records to show for it. Still, I’m better safe than sorry!

“Don’t worry, you don’t have to take any. Just make sure I don’t die, or get raped, or whatever.”

“Uh, would that happen if I wasn’t there?” Lily laughs as though I’ve just told a very funny joke. 

“Who knows! I get a little too enthusiastic when I’m high. Please come?” Her emerald green eyes sparkle in a pouty display of _pretty please?_ and I find myself giving in, if only because I don’t want her to die or get raped. Nothing of that sort. I’ve been roped into trip-sitting Lily Evans for the night. 

I find it interesting how she’s homeless but still seems to have the budget for tattoos and club drugs, but haven’t asked about it yet. Sometimes I think about charging her rent or for the food we cook for her, but then I realize it’d be too awkward and a little unnecessary so I don’t. You and I make enough money to have some left over, anyways, so it’s not like we’re living paycheck to paycheck.

“We need to find you an outfit.” Lily tells me.

“I, ummm…” She walks into the bedroom before I can finish my sentence and I follow quickly behind her as she starts pawing through the closet. “I don’t think you’ll find anything worthwhile. What are you wearing?” 

“I’ve got a dress.” Lily carries around her outfits (along with all her worldly possessions) in a backpacking bag, and she presents a very small red piece of fabric to me. “It’s a mini dress.”

“Very mini.”

“Indeed.” She drops the dress on the floor and continues pawing through the closet. “Okay, your wardrobe’s looking a little….”

“Sparse?”

“I mean, you’re a teacher and your boyfriend’s an emo lumberjack. What would you guys wear clubbing? Khaki fucking shorts?” I don’t comment on her description of you because it’s more or less accurate, though you would probably call yourself a punk lumberjack if it came down to it. 

“What do…. what do guys even wear clubbing?”

“Shirts, pants, dunno. Gay guys wear less, you know.”

“I don’t want to wear less.” Lily turns around and bites the inside of her lip while looking me up and down.

“You could get away with less. You’ve got the bod. Not Sirius, though. He’s too manly.” I don’t let her get away with dressing me in next to nothing, and I don’t ask her what she means by Sirius being too manly. My outfit ends up being something rather garish that does, after all, make me look more or less okay. 

I’m wearing a floral button down shirt that you wear on fancy occasions with a few top buttons undone, dark skinny jeans, and my worn out captain boots.

“You’ll have to do,” Lily tells me on our bus ride over to East Portland, where the nightclub is located. It makes me feel young again, taking the bus. I had to learn to drive in the town where I grew up because the public bus ran on its own private hellish schedule which meant showing up thirty minutes late for each stop.

But in Philly, in college, I’d ride the public buses and watch the people of my city without speaking to them. One night I was headed home from a concert I’d gone to alone, freshman year before I had many friends or met you. I’d had my earbuds in and was staring out the frozen pane of a window, watching a woman dance in the street. 

She may have been homeless or maybe just drunk and lost, but she wore bright purple lipstick which beamed off of her black skin and lit up her face as she smiled. Her eyes were closed. Hands twisted above her head as she moved down the street, legs jumping as she danced danced danced until the light turned green and we left her behind in the frozen neon night. 

I think of her when I look at Lily. Her red dress has a nonexistent neckline and starts a few inches below her collarbones in a slash of velvet fabric that goes all the way around. It’s like a tube top, just a dress, and it ends very high on her thighs. She’s not wearing a bra and the underwear front is doubtful, but her ginger hair, freckled face, and the massive tattoo on her back scream _LILY EVANS_ loud and clear like she’d smile at you before you wake up with exit wounds. 

She pops the pills as soon as we get into the club and I’m forced onto the dance floor with her. The colors flash psychedelic lights onto us as she moves just like the woman in Philly on that late night, hands up over her head and twisting her shoulders back and forth as she moves without a care in the world of who might be watching.

“Do you want a drink?” I call to her. 

“Yeah!” We move through the crowd of people all dressed up to stand in a dark room that flashes neon blacklights. The bartender wears a black button down shirt with none of the buttons done, exposing his all-too impressive abs. The guy looks Indian- dark brown skin and disastrously messy black hair that's sort of endearing. He wears glasses and I can’t see his eyes, but he’s got a flashy grin and nods knowingly when Lily asks for a Fog Cutter.

“What do you want?” She asks me, yelling to be heard. I tell her I don’t really drink. She shakes her head and asks again- “What do you want?” even though I’m the one paying. The bartender pushes her drink back over the counter and she shouts a thank you before chugging half of it. Both me and the bartender watch in shock as she puts away half of the drink in one go, yells “woo!” after finishing, and leaves it on the bar top before disappearing back into the crowd.

“Yo, can I get you something?” The bartender asks. I turn and look at him again, pissed off by how hot he is, and don’t know what to say.

“Can I get a beer? And a shot?”

“Of what and what?” I don’t drink, that’s the whole point, and here I am: drinking.

“Whatever’s cheapest!” The bartender nods and disappears back to the main part of the bar where all the liquor bottles are. He returns with a tall glass and a small one- my boilermaker- and I give him my credit card.

“Do you want to run a tab?” He asks me. I think of Lily shooting back half of her incredibly alcoholic drink, and how in twenty minutes every neon light will have the brightness turned up and the taste of alcohol on her breath will keep her coming back for more. She’ll be absolutely euphoric. 

“Yeah, go for it.” He flashes me a thumbs up and disappears with my card. I take the shot, cough a little, and then check my phone.

> SIRIUS: where are u guys? just got off work and i wanna join!!!
> 
> ME: holoscene, we took the bus but u might wanna drive bc lilys getting drunk and she took mdma so she’ll be crashing tonight
> 
> SIRIUS: lmao 
> 
> SIRIUS: are u drinking?
> 
> ME: a little but i can drive us back

I’m well known for my incredible alcohol tolerance. It doesn’t make much sense since I end up with a drink in my hand maybe once every other month (at most) but you’re a lightweight. Always have been.

> SIRIUS: kk 
> 
> SIRIUS: ill be there in like 20. pray to the parking gods for me. xoxoxoxooo

I sit and nurse my beer anxiously for twenty minutes while the bartender sticks a coaster on top of Lily’s drink. I look at him curiously and he doesn’t look back. I don’t know if he’s doing it to remind himself not to dump it out, or so she doesn’t get roofied. Either way, I forget about it when you text me that you’re here. I tell you I’m at the bar and it takes you ten minutes to find me- wearing exactly what you wore to work- khaki shorts, a Glocca Morra shirt, and Vans. 

Your clubbing outfit. Jesus, I needn’t have dressed up.

“Oh, hello, you look so hot!” You exclaim as I spin around on the barstool, relieved to see you. 

“You want to take my seat? I’ll go get Lily.” The bar is packed and I’m lucky to have scored one seat to myself, and you nod. “Be right back.” You pout, not moving out of my way. “What?”

“Don’t I get a kiss?” I laugh and feel a little stupid before sliding off the stool and kissing you properly- standing up and nicely. You pull me closer, slide your hand around my hip, and I break away breathless and laughing, wandering off into the pulsing crowd before I can get too carried away. Lily’s grinding up against a black girl wearing a bikini and that’s it, and I have to shake her shoulder to get her attention. The girl she’s dancing with gives me a wary look, but Lily sets her green eyes on me and essentially throws herself on top of me.

“Remus!” She squeals, enveloping me in a hug that’s particularly strong given how small she is. “I fucking love you!” Her voice is muffled by my shirt and she hugs tight, rocking me back and forth. 

“I love you too, man.” Lily pulls away and stares at me. Her pupils are pinpoint inside her big green eyes and her face is flushed with exertion. She jumps up and down, hands on my shoulder, dragging me with her.

“I’m so happy right now, man, I’m so happy! This is Dorcas!” She gestures at the girl in the bikini who waves at me.

“Hi!” I tell her.

“Hi!” She responds.

“Sirius is here,” I tell Lily, who gasps hugely.

“Yes! I love Sirius! I’ll see you later, babe!” She tells Dorcas, who’s turned away to dance with someone else. We make our way back to the bar while Lily talks about anything, and she nearly screams out loud when she sees you sitting at the bar, drinking a martini and looking decidedly sexy. The bartender has started making towering origami creations out of coasters on top of Lily’s drink and she orders another one so she doesn’t have to knock down his sculpture of coasters. 

Lily knocks back her second Fog Cutter, you finish your martini, and I don’t touch the rest of my beer before the three of us take to the dance floor and spend hours moving jerkily to pounding music for the rest of the night. You and I have never been big into clubbing but you dance better than I do, and you rock your body close to mine, hands running down my chest, hips swaying to the music, eyes dark and sultry in the low lighting. 

The sweaty heat of the club brings me closer to you and we lose track of Lily for a while, obsessed with each other more than anything in the world. I think I’ve been in love with you from the moment I met you and I could watch you all day long the way we used to sit out on our front steps in Philly and watch the world pass by. You’re the world, tonight or forever and I can only hope that you aren’t just passing by. I think I’d like you by my side forever.

It’s half midnight by the time Lily returns, apparently bored with where we’ve found ourselves.

“Dorcas and her girlfriend are leaving, do you want to go with them?” She asks and we’re having enough fun to say yes. Dorcas and her girlfriend are standing outside of the club and I realize that I know Dorcas’s girlfriend- tall, blonde, and tattooed.

“You sold me weed!” I exclaim and she registers me with those warm blue eyes.

“Yeah, man! What’s your name?”

“Remus! Marlene- right?”

“Yeah! How weird! Small world!” The five of us stumble down the street- the women more buzzed than you and I. Lily buys a bag of Cheetos from an all night shop and says eating them is like dousing her tongue in lighter fluid and throwing a match onto it. Awash with flame. By the time anyone mentions the concept of home, the streets seem clearer and quieter than before- Portland at night. You ask Dorcas and Marlene if they need a ride home and they say sure, so you ride shotgun while the three girls pile into the back and giggle. 

Lily sits in the middle with no seatbelt on because she says it feels fearless and so she has a clear view of the street in front of her. She’s still high and won’t stop talking but none of us really mind. You turn the radio station to something indie rock related and while Marlene rolls down one window, Dorcas struggles with the other one.

“I think your window’s broken.” She says, tugging at the glass.

“It’s manual,” you tell her in a voice of laughter. “You have to open the door and pull it down from both sides.” You didn’t mean _now_ because we’re driving down the road and both Dorcas and Lily start screaming when Dorcas pushes the door open and they nearly fall out of the car. I swerve wildly, glancing backwards, and you just laugh while grabbing the wheel that I’m not paying attention to.

“Break, Moony!” You say and I swerve again, looking back in front of me and hitting the break right as we roll through a red light. I’m in the middle of the intersection and the car comes to a screeching halt as the three girls in the back crush forward against the front seats and the back door is shut and everyone’s inside but Lily’s laughing so hard that tears are streaming down her face. No one else is coming into the intersection. Late at night. The five of us sit in our beat up red Subaru with a broken back window and laugh like we’ll never stop.


	9. Comedown

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The aftermath of a night out

_ “I saved a piece for you.” _

Waking up hungover feels like a headache, black splotches dancing around your eyes, dizzy nausea in the pit of your stomach and a brain straining to remember the events of the previous night. You and I don’t wake up hungover. We’re responsible adults, aren’t we? 

We wake up together on the weekends, all tangled limbs and warm bodies twisted together but we separate to do different things- me to take my meds and brush my teeth while you stumble into the kitchen to get the coffee on. 

This morning is different, because Lily Evans is lying on her couch-bed sobbing. Both of us tiptoe warily into the living room where she’s lying in last night’s dress, half under a knit blanket, hands over her face while she cries. You look at me with wide eyes and I look back. 

“You know her better,” I hiss in a whisper at the same time that you protest-

“Aren’t you trained for these sorts of things? Crisis management?” We hesitate, thinking about what the other has said. I haven’t, in fact, necessarily been trained in crisis management. But I’ve spent enough time managing my own mental health to know what to do, and I roll my eyes as you twist your hands nervously while I move towards the couch.

“Lily, what’s going on?” I ask. You hide behind the doorway so she can’t see you watching as she flips over on the couch and continues crying. “Is it the comedown?” I ask her, and I can see her head nod. That’s the issue with MDMA. You spend a night absolutely flooded with serotonin and sensation, feeling like your world cannot get any better, and the next day you’re all out of happiness juice. “Come on, get up, okay?” I reach a hand out to tug at her shoulder. 

“I don’t wanna do anything ever again.”

“Yeah, that’s what your body’s saying. You need food, water, a shower. Come on, up and at ‘em!” I tug again and she groans, curling tighter into a ball. I know this feeling from years of struggling with bipolar disorder. Waking up and realizing that you’ve made a mistake, falling asleep and subjecting yourself to dreams where you’re someone else. Dark rooms, drawn curtains, not being able to find a purpose. I know how badly it hurts. “Lily, come on. Get up!” I pull her into a sitting position. She’s stopped crying but her pupils are massive and her eyes red rimmed from crying. “Are you up for food?” She shakes her head. “Coffee?” Another head shake. “Water. We’ll get you some water. In the kitchen. Come on.” 

Lily’s physically shaking as she leans against me, feet dragging uselessly as I lead her into the kitchen. You’re standing by the stove looking too nervous for your own good. 

“Alright, sit down. I’ll get you some water. And bread, or something. You’ve got to eat.” Lily says nothing, just glances up at you as you gingerly sit down at the table with her. It’s a painfully tiny table- round and with one of the legs a little broken so it’s always wobbling. I place a glass of water in front of our guest of honor and fix myself a bowl of cereal while you pick up a coaster on the table.

“What’s this?” You ask, not particularly to me or her, just to the kitchen in general. “Is this from the club?” Lily takes a sip of her water and then frowns at the coaster, reaching a shaky hand out for it. I sit down at the table which gives a mighty wobble when I rest my bowl on it. 

“Oh, man. He gave me his number.”

“What?” I ask, at the same time that you demand- “Who?”

“The bartender.” Lily flicks the coaster back down onto the table and I pick it up to inspect the hastily scrawled phone number on the back of it. “From last night.” I remember him well. Dark brown skin, bright white smile, rock hard abs. Stupid fucking perfect bartender man had given crazy, drugged up Lily Evans his phone number. 

“That’s great!” I exclaim, trying to be a source of positivity. It is great, honestly. I would feel great if it were me.

Because Lily had been high and seeing double, everything flashing in bright colors, and the only thing that made sense to her was twisting back and forth on a dark dance floor and someone had already fallen in love with her. Someone kind enough to stack coasters on top of her drink all night long because I remember her telling me that I’d protect her from getting raped as a joke, but I hadn’t found it so funny. Young homeless women don’t joke about shit like that unless they’ve had a prior encounter, you know? 

Do you know? Do you look at a near stranger with her head on our kitchen table and wonder why you take in strays- the way we took in Peter after his girlfriend kicked him out, or adopted those chinchillas that your coworker needed to rehome? How you don’t want to leave anyone without a proper place to call their own out on the street?

I thought it was strange that one of your tattoo clients told you she was homeless and you immediately gave her a spot on your couch in your very small basement that you share with your weird, nerdy, awkward boyfriend. 

Still, I sit at the table and try to feed Lily a piece of toast. She picks at the crust, removing it, and eats the crispy-on-the-outside soft-on-the-inside middle of the white toast and says she wants to go back to sleep. You walk her back to bed because she can’t stand without falling onto something while I lock myself in the bathroom and brush my teeth while considering if I should take my meds today.

It’s usually not much of a choice, if you get what I mean. It’s something I do every day without much thought but recently I’ve been feeling more and more  _ distant.  _ My dose had been upped to ten milligrams before I left Philly but taking ten stabilized my thoughts so goddamn much that I was left a walking, talking zombie. My thoughts were stable because I didn’t have any. So I made my own decision to take one pill a day instead of two, but I’d still gained twenty pounds over the summer out of a newfound obsession with food and an aching hunger in my stomach that never seems to go away, no matter how much I eat. 

And I know it can’t be me, realistically, because I’ve never felt this way before. I’ve always got food on the brain- thinking about my next meal, and the one after, and what I’ll for dinner on the weekends and breakfast on the weekdays and it’s awful, honestly. It’s a craving for carbs and sugar and dastardly, evil things that make me continue to gain weight and since I’m stupid and insecure, I don’t take any pills this morning. 

Not two, like I was prescribed, not one, which had been my own stupid choice, but none. Zero. Zilch. I look at myself in the mirror and see the scars on my face and think  _ Remus, this is a really stupid fucking decision.  _ Me and my reflection stare each other down before I look away, seeing the hateful swell of my belly and reminding myself that I’ve been functioning just fine since we’ve moved here. 

You’re waiting for me in the kitchen, reading The Oregonian and drinking coffee like the picture of utterly domestic perfection. When I reappear, you look up and smile- brown eyes crinkling as you beam at me with genuine love. 

“Look,” you tell me, pointing at something else on the table- another gift left from Lily. 

“What’s that?”

“Acid. Tabs. I saved a piece for you.”

“You took one?!” 

“No!” You laugh, watching as I sit down at the table and examine the blotters. They look like mini-stamps, with bright yellow smiley faces on them. There’s two left and I glance at you and that sly expression on your face. “No, Moony, I can’t afford to trip for twelve hours today. I’ve got shit to do. I’m saving it.”

“For when?”

“When the time is right. Save yours, too, we’ll do ‘em together.” 

“Okay.” I’ve never tried psychedelics before and you did shrooms like, twice, back in college and enjoyed yourself but I’ve always been too scared to let my mind go like that. I’ve got no idea where the LSD will take me and I’ve always been much too afraid to find out. It represents a loss of control that I’ve become too familiar with due to my own mental illness but I bury the tabs next to yours, in the kitchen drawer where the scissors and screwdrivers are kept. For future reference. 


	10. Alive and Out of Control

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bad news often comes both out of nowhere and at the worst possible time

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so many content warnings that listing them would be crazy. just be aware that shit gets heavy

_"I'm sorry for your loss."_

It’s on a Tuesday morning that I begin to feel the effects of withdrawals, and it starts with me throwing up in the toilet with the shower running so you don’t hear me puking, even though I shower at night. I’ve never had them this bad before. 

Withdrawals mostly go something like sweating through all my clothes, not being able to keep down anything I eat, crying (so, so much crying), headaches bad enough to turn my vision half blurry and half splotched black. It’s like suffering from some sickening illness- the flu and malaria and schizophrenia all at once, like torture and everything wrong in the world. 

After throwing up a spitty solution of stomach acid and nothing else, I pop some pills (though not the ones I’m in withdrawal from) and take some time to regard myself disdainfully in the mirror. I’m pale and shaky- scars on my face standing out, golden nose ring the only thing on my face that looks anything like me. Makes me _feel_ anything like me. 

I’m not in the proper state to go to work, but then again, I’ve done this to myself so I’ve got to be the one to face the consequences. You’re still in bed this morning- hair tangled and messy, body curled up in the covers you steal in the night, and I stand for a moment catching my breath in the entryway, wondering if I’m going to be sick again, wondering if it would be bad form to call Lily up and ask her to move in because in the silence of our home, all I can hear is your voice calling my name. Even though you’re asleep. 

Lily had moved out yesterday, after calling up the bartender (named James, apparently) and being invited to move in with him after spending one day with him. It sounds a tiny bit fast for a relationship to move, but I’ve got to keep in mind that she’s homeless and crazily charismatic. Lily could get anyone to ask her to move in, and I wonder if knowing someone for one day is a new record.

I look at myself in the mirror- see something out of the corner of my eye. I turn, nothing there. Stare at myself again, you shout, another flicker in my peripherals, I want to scream. I’m going crazy. I want to wake you up and tell you there’s something badly wrong happening, that I’m losing my mind, but you’re asleep so soundly and the last thing I want to do is wake you from a place of peace and quiet.

So I leave. Voices still bounce around my head on the way out but the corgi in the entryway has a calming effect on me and I drive to work with the windows down and the radio off, breathing cool, wet Portland air and watching the road reflect green trees and the shine of rain. 

My morning classes pass in a haze of nausea and sweat, but after I lock my door during lunch and spend an hour sitting with my head on my desk, the nausea departs and I’m left feeling tired and faraway. It’s just a matter of getting through the day, now, but that’s made harder during my last class of the day (always the rowdiest) when my phone won’t stop buzzing in my desk.

My students start laughing the third time the desk drawer erupts in loud vibrations, so I stride down the setup of desks and slide open the drawer to see who’s calling me. 724 area code flashes across the screen and it’s my dad. Not you, calling with an emergency, or Lily, high on something unspecified and psychedelic. My dad?

We haven’t spoken since, specifically, March 10th when I turned the blissful age of twenty four and he called to wish me happy birthday. But it’s not my birthday, and my grandparents have all bit the dust, which determines this to be an EMERGENCY, all caps for good measure.

The whole classroom has rotated in their seats to openly stare at me and I feel my head return to that uncomfrotable foggy place as I look up at their curious faces.

“Um.” I say. “Um, worksheets. Finish those! Fill them out using the textbook and hand them in by the end of class.” Students look around at each other and think I’ve gone easy on them. “For an accuracy grade.” I add, just for good measure. A collective groan rises from the classroom. “If you read the textook closely, you’ll get the answers. I’ve got to…” I pause, looking down at my phone. “I’ll be right back.” 

This doesn’t sit well with my class. “Aw, Mr. Lupin, don’t be a hypocrite! What happened to ‘no phones in class’, huh?” This fucking kid. Alex with the freckled face and smart mouth grins at me as though I’d ever find him funny. 

“Alex, if you were having an emergency, which I sincerely hope you don’t, I would let you use your phone. And I go by those same rules, man.” I hold up my phone. “This is an emergency.” The class quiets after that. I shut the door on my way out, praying no admin staff will come wandering through to see a roomful of thirteen year olds left to their own devices. 

Feeling jerky and strange, I wander down the fluorescent hallway to lock myself in the staff bathroom, picking up the fourth call that my dad has placed without taking a moment to gather my thoughts. 

“Hello?”

“Remus?” His voice is hoarse. It takes me back in time to hear him speak. I imagine him sitting in the kitchen smoking. The haze of smoke would filter the sunlight, turning it ash grey to match his prematurely whitening hair, and his lined face would be cast in a haze of cigarette smoke and washed out sunshine. 

“Dad? What’s wrong?”

“It’s your mom…” The words come out weak. I’m starting to realize that this is more serious than I expected. “I’m sorry Remus, I’m so sorry. She’s passed.” Now _that_ was not the news I was expecting to hear today. I take a deep breath.

“How?” 

“She had cancer. Pancreatic. Got diagnosed in April…” My mom got the worst kind of cancer around six months ago and no one really thought to tell me. It makes sense, since we’re estranged. We were estranged. Because she’s dead now. Nothing but a past tense. 

“When did she die?”

“Two hours ago.” Easy, quick response because I know he’s been counting.

“Okay.” This is a lot to process. In fact, it’s sort of unprocessable for me at the moment. “I’m sorry, dad.” I wonder if I’m supposed to cry or even feel bad. I’ve been acting like she’s dead for years after a youth spent wishing it vehemently, and now that wish has come true and I’m speechless and sad.

“Will you come home? For her funeral?” 

“No,” I choke out thoughtlessly. “I can’t. I’m sorry.” My dad sighs and that’s what finally gets my heart breaking. Not for my mom, but for him: Lyall Lupin, forced to bury his wife alone because his only son is too selfish to return home for the funeral. “I’m so sorry.” 

“It’s not your fault, son.”

“I’ve gotta go, dad, I’m at work…” I’d emailed him about moving cross country but never explained that I landed a job as a teacher. He has no idea what’s taking place in my life. “I’ll call you tonight, okay? I’m sorry.”

“I love you, Remus.” That’s the final straw. I choke out a “you too” before hanging up. 

Then I stand with my back against the bathroom door and remember my mom singing “You Are My Sunshine” to me as a kid when I got sad. I remember her making chicken dumpling soup when I was sick. Remember her kissing my scraped knees to make them better. Or how she’d tuck her dirty blonde hair under a Pirates cap on sunny days and take me on long bike rides in the countryside. 

I think of all the good things forgotten and left behind, those memories buried deep beneath years of abuse. I splash my face with water and go back to class. 

There’s not long left in the day and when the 3:00 bell finally rings out its blissful notes, Alex lingers by my desk instead of rushing out behind everyone else.

“I’m sorry for calling you out, Mr. Lupin.” He confesses bravely. I’m distracted and glance up at him with a frown. “That was rude.” You can color me surprised.

“That’s okay, Alex. Totally fine. It’s not fair to tell you to keep your phones away and then use mine, I know.” He shifts from foot to foot and looks uncomfortable. 

“Well, I hope everything’s okay, anyways. Have a good rest of your day.” 

“You too,” I tell him as he leaves and as soon as the door swings shut behind him, I wish I could go home too. I’ve got a meeting with all the seventh grade teachers in fifteen minutes and with enough heart to say it out loud I think “fuck it.” 

I’m nearly out the door, free to process my emotions however I want, before I realize that despite the fact that my mom’s just died, I still have priorities. My lack of knowing how to organize the, however, leaves me to dump these issues on Mary MacDonald’s desk. 

“Hey, Mary, I’ve got a favor to ask.” She smiles at me, all friendly and innocent, not knowing she’s in for a Remus Lupin Special of shoving my problems into someone else’s face to take care of.

“What’s up?”

“Uh, if you could tell the admin that I’ve had an emergency and can’t make it to the meeting.”

She frowns, now. “ _Do_ you have an emergency?” Oh, just because I’m fresh faced out of college doesn’t mean I’m making excuses to skip my meetings!

“Yeah.” I play with my keys hanging on the edge of the lanyard while looking at her, and she sits up straighter, looking worried. “Someone died. I’ve got to go home.”

“Oh, shit. I’m so sorry.”

“It’s fine, I’ve just- I’ve gotta run. I owe you one?”

“Sure.”

“Thanks, Mary.” Then I’m out the door just like Alex had been, not up for sticking around for formalities, and I nearly sprint out to my car so I can lock myself inside and have a proper cry about everything that’s just happened. But no, fuck this, I can’t sit in the staff parking lot and have a breakdown! What if some kid walks by and sees me bawling like a motherfucker and knocks on the window? 

So I drive to the nearest, safest place to sit in my car and sob- a Fred Meyer parking lot- with tears dripping down my cheeks. Then I let it all out. 

I cry mostly because I’m selfish and I’ve hurt my dad for not coming home for her funeral and not even bothering to comfort him. I sit in my puddle of self despair and when my throat is hoarse from sobs and I’m all cried out, I realize that this is what my mother has wanted all along. Working her evil manipulation from the grave. She would’ve wanted me to feel bad for abandoning her with a depressed husband and her own bad case of addiction. She would’ve wanted me to cry.

I can’t really think of what to do now. Distractions have always been tough things for me.

I used to fix things by cutting deep into my arms and legs (and face, in moments of manic insanity) but that period in my life has been put to rest. This brings me to my latest obsession and the location I’ve conveniently found myself in. Food. Grocery store.

Fred Meyer’s bright lights guide me down the path of unhealthy salvation as I fill a basket with bad food, comfort food. Mac n’ cheese, donuts, chips, ice cream, fried chicken. I eat two donuts on the ride home, feeling the flakiness on the outside give way to sweet dough covered in a glazed icing that makes my mouth water. I finish the box at the kitchen table, eating donut after donut like a cop on his lunch break until my fingers and mouth are smeared with icing. 

And so it goes. I smoke a few bowls while waiting for my water to boil and munching on a mixture of potato chips and fried chicken. The tastes become too salty, too oily, which propels me into starting on the ice cream. It’s fudge chocolate and makes me feel _so_ much better that I’m halfway through the pint before dumping the pasta into the water. Another bowl of weed, another piece of chicken, another scoop of ice cream, another handful of chips- then I’m high enough to forget that I’m sad, full enough to forget I’m hurting, and distracted enough to put on some M83. I sit in the middle of my food disaster at the wobbly kitchen table and think about what’s gone wrong.

For a brief moment, I think that this isn’t how normal people cope.

This thought is justified by the fact that I’m not coping at all. This? Nah, this isn’t coping at all. This is some fucked up food obsession mixed with a binge. Maybe it’s my meds getting all side-effecty on me or maybe it’s just _me._ How there’s always got to be something fucking wrong with me.

But you know what? There’s nothing I can do about it now. I’m high off my head and my pasta has boiled so of course I’m going to eat it, and I’m going to eat _all_ of it because once I’ve added the butter and milk and fluorescent cheese powder, I realize that I should be awarded for my cooking skills. Like, damn. It’s all gooey and buttery and delicious, so I put away about half of the pot before I’m in an acute sort of pain that does nothing to stop me. I give the pasta a break, finish the fried chicken, and then try my luck at finishing the mac n’ cheese. This leaves me so full that I think I might puke. I sit and catch my breath, swallowing down the tight feeling suggesting that just because I’ve got my appetite back, doesn’t mean I needed to overdo it like this.

Still- there’s more. Man, there’s always more. The last two culprits are the second half of the ice cream pint and the potato chips. My high mind decides that dipping chips into the ice cream is the best method of eating it, so I dig in. I don’t know why I’ve decided to finish all this food. Maybe it’s because it would be shameful for you to find any evidence of my breakdown. I’ve got to make it all disappear before you can find me.

Too late, anyways. I never get a chance to clean up.

I’m stoned and there’s weird ambient electronic music blasting through our basement while I devour the rest of the ice cream like some rabid animal, face smeared with chocolate, and then the door opens and you’re standing there.

“Moony?” I’ve just upended the family sized bag of chips onto my face to catch the crumbs at the bottom, and I inhale a mouthful of greasy chip crumbs in surprise and descend into a coughing fit while you warily approach me. “What’s going on? You good?” To be frank, I’m the exact opposite of good. My usually shamefully soft stomach is stretched and taut, full of an insane amount of food that I’m itching to go throw up, and I’m suddenly and acutely so ashamed that I feel like bursting into a fresh set of tears.

And to be completely honest, I don’t know what to tell you.

“I’m high.” I explain, because that’s always a good way to begin. “And my mom died.” I finally look up at you, standing a foot back from the table, frowning. You’re wearing a backwards baseball cap to hold your hair back today, a faded, vintage black and red Phillies one. You ask:

“What?”

“Umm.” I swallow the rest of the chips in my throat and shift on the chair that groans beneath my weight. Fuck this stupid fucking chair. Making me feel all worse when I don't need it. 

“Your mom _died_?” I nod. You look at me with those deep brown eyes, swimming with worry and something like panic that’s just beneath the surface. You’ve always been able to hold it together. “Jesus Christ, Moony. I’m so sorry for your loss. Are you okay?”

“No, I’m not. I don’t know… I think I need to… I need to be alone.” Alone is a wonderful, sparklingly superb idea for the given moment. I stand up jerkily, tugging my shirt down over whatever bloated excuse I’ve got for a stomach, and flinch away from you hard when you reach an hand out to touch me. I stumble when I walk, jolting down the hall, and your lips disappear in a thin white line as you follow me very slowly.

“Remus, are you drunk?” There’s my first name instead of a nickname, evidence that you know something’s _definitely_ wrong with this situation. And there’s a typical off the cuff remark- asking if I’m drunk when all I really am is manic. For a fleeting, heartbeat of a moment, I hate you for not being able to see through the grief and dragging me to the ER when you should.

And _fuck,_ why do I care?

“No, no, I don’t fucking _drink!”_ Except I do, when other people do it and I feel the societal pressure to. “Just- don’t clean up, don’t bother, just go- go away or something, just leave me alone, okay? I can’t right now.”

“Clean up what…?” I’m walking backwards through our tiny home, finding refuge in the bathroom. I try to shut the door on you but you stick your foot in, shoving your strong shoulder against the door and standing so close to me that I could lean forward and bump my nose against yours. Your eyes- dark, eyelashes, thick and even darker, brow drawn so there’s wrinkles in your forehead. “Remus, I’m worried about you.”

“Don’t be.” I say. _Then_ I slam the door on you.

I hear you shout “fuck!” because I must’ve stubbed all your toes but I don’t care right now, I turn on the shower to tune you out, flick on the fan and run the sink for good measure. Just to get rid of the silence. I can’t stand hearing things that aren’t there. I can’t stand this at all. I cram my fingers down my throat to get rid of everything I’d just put away. I sit in a sweaty heap on the floor and vomit into the toilet, pushing my fingers down over and over until my throat burns with acid and I’ve been emptied out. What a waste.

Toilet flushed, clothes off, turned away from the mirror the whole time. Shower water is hot and I cover my eyes with my hands while I stand under the stinging spray, trying to focus on what I might be feeling, _anything,_ trying to process any single emotion.

I’m having a panic attack, I think. I feel alive and out of control.

It’s the way I felt while flying off my bike on the way back from Sauvie Island. I was speeding downhill, in control, hands curled loosely over the handlebar breaks as the wind hit my face and I felt _good_ and then I hit the bump in the path. Lost all control. No breaks- frying free. No way to stop it except to eventually crash to the ground.

I focus on the darkness behind my eyelids. I focus on the hot, wet water that patters down around me. Breathe in, breathe out.

When I open my eyes again, the first thing I see is the shaving razor sitting next to the soap and I promptly lose any sense of sanity that I’ve worked up over the past few minutes. Every bad memory of my mother comes flooding back- all of the mental images warring for a place in my mind.

I remember her breaking down my door after I’d passed out, sophomore year. I’d cut myself so deep that blood loss lead to losing consciousness and I’d been roused by her shaking my shoulders and screaming. My dad had been hovering behind, eyes wide at the sight of his only son covered in his own blood with his wrists slit from hand to elbow. She’d been screaming something about how we couldn’t afford an ambulance and my dad had called 911 anyways because of the way my eyes rolled back in my head and I collapsed when my mom stopped holding me up.

Two days later when I’d been released from the hospital, she’d told me over dinner that I owed her six hundred dollars for the ambulance ride and she’d be collecting interest. My dad had sat there with a cigarette between his lips and looked down, blowing smoke onto his food, with nothing to say. I’d gotten that job at Wawa to pay her back for all the debt she’d put me in. 

The ambulance ride had only been the start. Every suicide attempt, every stitch given to me, every IV hooked into my arm and every pill administered was run up on my own tab. She started splitting the electric and water bill three ways so I would pay. Grocery money started falling onto me, so I ate stale chips and sandwich ingredients from work, when I worked. But I was in high school and only did part time so a few nights a week, I went hungry. 

I would buy white bread and peanut butter from the store and stash them in my room so my parents wouldn’t eat them, and mash up the two ingredients into something barely edible. It had been good for not getting hungry, though. That nasty mixture would sink like a stone in my stomach and be satiating enough for a full day. 

I think about owing my mom thousands of dollars in unnecessary debt and the waterworks come on again- so bad and so fully that I sit down in the shower and sob loudly, thinking about that razor at the edge of the shower and I’m about to reach out and pick it up before you come in. Timing’s always right. And I always promised never to lock you out.

“Remus! Remus, oh man…” You pull back the shower curtain to find me sitting naked in the bathtub with hot water pouring down all over me. “Get up, babe, come on, let’s get up, this isn’t cool.” You’re soaked by the shower as you wrap your strong arms around me and lift me out of the water. I don’t stop to think that you don’t consider turning off the shower first. I’m the main priority. I’m shaking despite the heat of the shower and I cry without restraint, not knowing what’s happening. 

I close my eyes, or maybe I cover them, but I block out whatever there is to see. Sometimes, I wonder if I would feel better blind.

You move me out of the bathroom and I feel cold, I feel the tile on my feet morph into rough carpeting, I feel a towel around me and I hear your voice but I can’t make out the words. I sit and shake with my hands over my eyes while you sit next to me and never leave my side.


	11. Sorry Sorry Sorry

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Remus continually proves himself to be inept at coping

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw for remus's famous relentless self hatred!

_ "You can have half."  _

I wake up at five in the morning feeling better than I have in years. 

The sun is out (hallelujah!) and you’re curled up under the covers, sleeping with a frown on your face. I move slowly so as not to wake you up and then think I’m going to go for a bike ride. And a long one. 

I change into fresh clothes, brush my teeth, don’t take my pills, don’t eat breakfast, and take my bike out of the entryway and up the stairs, thinking  _ this is great! Look at me, waking up before sunrise to go on a bike ride because I’m healthy and responsible.  _ I’ve left my phone at home because I don’t want any distractions- just want it to be me and nature. 

And boy, do I go all out.

I’m ten miles away from the city before I stop to look around at where I am. I’ve been following the Columbia River Highway out east, and decide there’s no better plan but to keep going. The day is hazy wet and grey, like I’m biking through a cloud of fog. Green trees surround me, green grass, dark green sky as though I could be swallowed up by the trees and mist and disappear forever. 

I wonder if I’d mind.

I bike and bike and bike- that’s all, repetitive motions of my feet moving in circles, legs pumping, farther and farther. On and on, miles pass by me as I pump the pedals and bike, knowing no other option but to keep going. I’m sweaty, panting, heart rate so high that I couldn’t stop even if I wanted to. My mind is clear, only focusing on the ache in my legs, the grind of the gears, the rhythmic sound of spinning spokes. Never for a second do I think about the journey back.

I finally stop out by Latourell, the ghost town on the Columbia River. And I don’t stop because I’m tired. I stop because there’s waterfalls to check out. Without my phone, I don’t exactly know what time it is or how far I’ve gone. All I know is that my legs are aching for more. So I retrace my route back into the city. I don’t realize how far I’ve gone until I reach the suburbs, out by Gresham, and the sun sets behind me in a colorless, cloudy sky. 

I’ve been gone all day. 

And yet, I still don’t come home. 

I bike around the city, taking in the beauty that comes with Oregon in the autumn- russet, gold, and brown collections of leaves rioting brightly in the sky. Dark green of the trees, lavender of the skies, red of the leaves that fall. Still, so much green out here. Most of these trees never die. Always evergreen. 

You’re crying when I get back home. You never cry.

Eyes darker than ever, hands shaking- saying  _ I was so worried, Remus, what the fuck? What the fuck was that? I was so fucking worried! Where were you? _

I say I’m sorry a million times over. You say I was gone all day. I say I biked out to Bridal Veil and you say that’s sixty miles round trip, Remus, what the fuck?! 

“Remus, we need to talk about this.” You step in front of me, just like yesterday, eyes burning, arms crossed defensively over your chest. “You’re acting manic.” Yesterday, I had wanted you to notice. I’d been desperate for a bit of pity and attention but now when you mention my mania, I’m incensed. Who are  _ you _ to accuse me of being manic? For all you know, I’m taking my meds like a responsible psycho and that’s a wild accusation.

“My mom just died, can I get a break?” You hesitate, eyes flickering worriedly. “Why would I be manic?”

“You just came back from a  _ sixty _ mile bike ride that you went on without your phone or telling me, on a shitty fucking bike!”

“Sirius, I needed some peace! I needed to get out of the city and have some time to myself! Can you get that?” I hate myself so much as I see you back down, understanding that I have a point after all. “I’m sorry.” I tell you. “I just- her death, I don’t know how to feel.” You seem to deflate from standing arms crossed and chest puffed out, turning back into the Sirius I know and love who’s not seconds away from continuing an argument that we both know I’d win. 

“Let’s talk about it?” 

“Yeah...” You move into the kitchen and I follow hesitantly, both not hungry and not willing to eat after the insane amount of calories I stuffed into myself yesterday. 

“Did you eat today?”

“No.” I stand with my arms hugging myself, rocking back and forth onto my tiptoes before I notice and stop before you can turn around and see. You pull something out of the fridge, some leftovers, and start heating them up. That’s the thing about people recovering from eating disorders. You can always count on them to feed you. 

“Do you want this tofu? You can have half.”

“Sure.” I take a shaky seat at the table and watch as you move around, making two portions and struggling to fit both plates in the microwave at once. You’re impatient like that. A one-trip kind of guy. I’ve seen you carry seven grocery bags at once just because you didn’t feel like walking back out to the car. Moving in was a whole other story. 

You turn around, arms and back against the counter, and look at me. Eyebrows low and drawn, eyes trying to work out if I’m manic or just grieving. I’m too scared to tell you the truth. 

“Do you want to talk about yesterday?” I don’t really want to talk, or even think, about yesterday. I’d lay in bed crying for a good while, I remember that. Your arms around me and feeling safe physically, but not mentally. I know I’d been on thin ice for a while, but it had finally cracked after that phone call from my dad and I’d been gone yesterday. I hadn’t known up from down. I had been insane. 

And I remember a clear sense of shame. Man, I wouldn’t forget that anytime soon.

I’d been sitting in the shower crying, naked and soaking wet, and you’d lifted me out of the tub and held me. And we’re dating, of course you’ve seen me naked, but I’m rightfully embarrassed now. I’ve gained more weight than I’d like to admit over these last few weeks and due to our new busy schedules, we haven’t gotten that much time to fuck around in bed together. And so my fat, stretched and scarred body had been all yours to see and I hate that I was vulnerable enough to let that happen. 

“Um. What part?”

“Any of it. The news, the shower, the breakdown, the binge…” I stare resolutely at the table as the microwave beeps. You set my plate in front of me and sit down heavily at the table, eyes red rimmed from crying and I can’t believe that you’ve forgiven me for leaving all day without a word. I guess I can get away with lots of things with news of my mom’s death under my belt. 

“I, uh. My dad called me at school. Told me what happened, and all. She had cancer, you know? Got it in April and no one told me?” You start eating and glance up at me while chewing. 

“Would you have wanted to know?”

“I don’t know… well, it doesn’t matter now. She’s dead. And after work, I had to go cry in a parking lot but the school one would’ve been too public. So I went to Fred Meyer. And then I was like, I’ll get some food. And I got too much, and then I got high, and it made me feel better and then it made me feel bad.” 

“Right.”

“And then you came home, and I didn’t know what to do, and I was embarrassed and I’m sorry I slammed your foot in the door.” You shrug an acceptance. “And I was having a panic attack, and then I saw this razor in the shower, and I freaked out.” Your eyes remain watchful and serious. I pick at the tofu and rice to appease you. It tastes like cardboard. Not because your cooking is bad, but because nothing tastes good when I’m manic. 

“Were you thinking about using it?” It’s a very gentle question but I want to cry. I look down at my scarred arms and sigh.

“I was. But you came in.” Then you sigh. “I’m sorry, and I wouldn’t have, I honestly wouldn’t have-”

“It’s fine, Remus.”

“You know I wouldn’t have.”

“It’s not about whether you would or you wouldn’t have,” you tell me, even though I can be sure you’ve hidden the razors in the bathroom and stashed the knives away somewhere safe. 

“I was just- I was in the past, you know? Some memories...” Your eyes ask me if I want to divulge the memories, and I decide maybe. Some of them. “You know, how once, I told you that my mom made me pay her back for rent, and food, and shit?”

“Yeah.” 

“That started because I tried to kill myself. My first attempt. I got back from the hospital and she said I owed her for the bill. And,  _ fuck,  _ you know what? I’m glad she’s dead.”

You just raise your eyebrows, face turned to your plate. I know you’re still angry with me and I know, deep down, that you also know I’m manic and you’re not sure what to do because I’m in a sensitive state. If my mom hadn’t died and I’d gone on that bike ride, we’d still be having a fight about whether or not I’ve been taking my meds and I would have cracked by now, I’m sure. 

But she had died. So we don’t talk about me being bipolar. 

“I just feel bad about my dad. He’s all alone and his son won’t even come back to bury her.”

“You have no obligation to.” 

“She’s my mom. I would’ve probably laughed at the funeral.” I say it in past tense, as in, you’re not going to convince me to go, no one’s going to convince me to go, and you just turn your face back to your food. As Sirius as living up to your name. 

“Sure you aren’t going?”

“I can’t.”

“Okay.” You look back up at me. “Eat your food, babe.”

“Sorry.” I take another bite and force down the papery, tough tofu. “I’m gonna take a week off work.” 

“Okay.” You reply again, sort of uncomfortable and not knowing what to do. “Whatever you need to do. Just don’t take off again, okay? Talk to me. I was really worried.” 

“I’m sorry.” I am sorry but I can’t promise I don’t take off again, because biking out to Bridal Veil had cleared my mind like nothing else. Still, now, I hate sitting at this table and eating this food. I want to get back on my bike and ride off into the night. I want to go on a run, want to drive up to Columbia River and throw myself into it, want to disappear for a long, long time. 

I am sorry. I just don’t know how to say it and mean it. 


End file.
